Summary
A powerful Israeli offensive shattered the long-standing balance of deterrence between Israel and Hizbullah, exposing deep vulnerabilities within the Lebanese militant group and transforming Lebanon’s political scene. Once revered as a “resistance” force, Hizbullah became a target of national ridicule after its military and intelligence failures led to massive destruction in southern Lebanon—tens of thousands of homes destroyed and over one hundred thousand civilians displaced.
The Israeli assault, prompted by a Hizbullah missile attack that killed twelve Druze children, swiftly eliminated much of Hizbullah’s senior military command. Israel’s decisive response dismantled the post-2006 equilibrium of mutual restraint, signaling that it no longer accepted Hizbullah’s deterrence threats.
Domestically, Hizbullah’s political grip began to unravel. The election of pro-American President Joseph Aoun marked a significant shift away from Hizbullah’s dominance. The group lost its government veto power, saw its influence curtailed at Beirut airport and borders, and faced aggressive moves against its financial network and smuggling operations—largely due to U.S. pressure.
Regionally, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the rise of a new Sunni-led, anti-Iranian government further isolated Hizbullah, cutting off key supply routes and Iranian aid channels. With Naim Qassem taking over leadership, the group turned inward, focusing on rebuilding its forces while avoiding direct confrontation with Israel to preserve its fragile position.
Despite these setbacks, Hizbullah remains determined to retain its weapons, viewing disarmament as existential suicide. Lebanon’s government, aware of the risks of civil fragmentation, avoids direct conflict, opting instead for uneasy coexistence. As both sides remain wary of escalation, Hizbullah’s survival now hinges on its military arsenal and the 2026 elections, which could determine whether it reclaims influence or fades from Lebanon’s power equation.
* This article is part of a forthcoming book: Hassan Nasrallah: The Final Days
The unprecedented blow suffered by Hizbullah at the hands of Israel brought drastic changes to the Lebanese reality. Suddenly, Hizbullah was a subject of criticism and mockery in Lebanon. Hizbullah was accused to have provoked Lebanese lands to fall once again under Israeli occupation, his so called strategic weapons proved useless facing Israel technological and air supremacy, his most intimate systems penetrated by Israeli intelligence and due to his opening of a “support front” facing Israel, 22 out 29 villages on the border with Israel were erased while more than 60 thousand houses were damaged and about one hundred and twenty thousand dwellers of the south had to flee northwards creating an impossible pressure on the socio economic structure of the Lebanese society.
Hizbullah was accused of taking part in a war that did not concern the Lebanese at all. The proof lay in the fact that Hamas had started the war without consulting or pre-notifying its allies of the resistance front. According to Nasrallah’s military doctrine, “the support front” was supposed to prevent Israel from using its total might against Hamas. In fact, even though Israel had to maintain the equivalent of two divisions facing its northern border, it did not stop its land incursion into the Gaza Strip. It systematically destroyed Hamas’s military infrastructure and apparatus.
The military campaign waged by Israel following the Hizbullah missile attack, which caused the death of twelve children playing soccer in the Druze village of Majd al Shams, took Nasrallah by surprise and threw him off balance. In less than a week, Israel succeeded in eliminating the high command of his militia and the top officers of the Radwan force, commanders he had known in person since his first beginnings as secretary general in 1992.
The Israeli response to the Hizbullah attack created a new reality. The power equation that existed since 2006 between Israel and Hizbullah, based on a concept of mutual deterrence, was brushed away by Israel. Israel made clear to Nasrallah that it no longer accepted threats based on the equation of equality, according to the famous formula Nasrallah formulated: “you escalate, we escalate.” Gone were the days in which Nasrallah used to brag that “if Lebanon were what it was thirty years ago and Israel were what it was at the time, the tent we erected on the blue line (as a provocation to Israel) would not remain in place for more than two minutes.”
Israel had transformed – no more restraint. Hizbullah had crossed all red lines, and Israel decided to show Nasrallah that he was not the champion he thought he was.
Discovering his weakness, the Lebanese took advantage of the situation: presidential elections, which Hizbullah had blocked due to his insistence that his candidate be the only one elected president, were held, and Joseph Aoun, the former army chief and a pro-American candidate, was elected president in January. Hizbullah also failed in appointing a prime minister and in forming the government, in which it lost the veto right it had held in previous governments. Anti Hizbullah measures were adopted one after the other: firing forty custom officers who served the interests of Hizbullah at the Beirut International Airport; forbidding the landing of Iranian planes carrying cash to the militia, annulling all VIP cards that allowed Hizbullah operatives to move freely in south Lebanon, enforcing drug control over the territory, a lucrative profession for Hizbullah operatives, breaking prostitution rings set by the militia, illegal commerce through the 136 illegal passages existing between the undefined border with Syria and fighting drugs and cash in trans-border transfers from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Under American pressure, the Lebanese authorities concentrated on finding ways to dismantle Hizbullah’s financial pyramid through the parallel bank it had established since 1982, al-Qard al-Hassan (the Benevolent Loan).
However, the most significant blow administered to Hizbullah after its failure to face Israel is the establishment of a new Sunni anti-Iranian and anti-Hizbullah regime in Syria, which replaced the Assad dynasty.
Suddenly, Hizbullah realized it had its arrears cut, and Syria stopped being the passage through which weapons, manpower, sophisticated technologies, and money sent by Iran via the land route transited to Lebanon.
Hizbullah finds itself nowadays confronted with three fronts: the domestic scene where it must fight to maintain its position despite all the changes occurring; the Israeli front which does not stop targeting its operators and commanders in the south and elsewhere in Lebanon; and the Syrian front, where the leader considers Hizbullah and its sponsor Iran as mortal enemies, a situation which demands huge concessions to be able to settle century-long animosities.
With the Iranian close cooperation, Hizbullah’s new leader, the most uncharismatic Naim Qassem, chose to concentrate on replacing the hundreds of commanders who had died, been injured, or could not go back to their units. His job was to operate a recovery, recruit new candidates, train them, and prepare them for the next military confrontation with Israel.
In the meantime, Hizbullah had to go below the radar and refrain from initiating military actions against Israeli targets in south Lebanon and elsewhere, for two reasons: one, it could not counter any Israeli attack; two, any military operation against Israel would be interpreted to hurt the present Lebanese regime. For that reason, Hizbullah chose to hide behind what Qassem called “the big brother,” Nabih Berri, speaker of the parliament and leader of the second Shiite Organization, “Amal.”
Little by little, Hizbullah came back to the front stage. The occasion was the challenge set by the government, which asked all militias in Lebanon to surrender their weapons to the state. A situation that Hizbullah could not accept: surrendering its weapons would deny its very legitimacy.
Hizbullah opposed the government on that issue, warning that any attempt would be considered a major sin that would lead Lebanon into the chaos of civil war. President Joseph Aoun is certain that he cannot order the army to disarm Hizbullah. He knows that his army would disintegrate into sectarian units and transform into sectarian militias.
Facing this development on both sides, Hizbullah and the government are not interested in confrontation. Hizbullah calls for collaboration on a defensive national strategy, meaning that the resistance will put at the state’s disposal all Hizbullah capabilities that would remain intact. In contrast, from the government’s perspective, this proposal would mean altering the character of the army and transforming it into a tool in the hands of Hizbullah.
The easy way for the government was to accuse Israel of being responsible for preventing the army from deploying in all of south Lebanon. An Israeli withdrawal, they argued, would give the government the power and the legitimacy to fight Hizbullah and deploy the Lebanese army in the south, ignoring the fact that Hizbullah’s presence in south Lebanon is there to stay.
Hizbullah and the government are facing each other in a confrontation that will never materialize for different reasons. The longer the Israeli presence in south Lebanon in the five outposts along the border, the more we approach the chance of a renewed conflict between Israel and the Shiite militia.
The war with Israel and the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria have dramatically reduced Hizbullah’s regional role that Iran created for the purpose of exporting Iranian influence and hegemony. In the new landscape of political forces in Lebanon, only the weapons in its arsenal prevent Hizbullah from being erased as a significant political factor in the Lebanese power game.
With such a philosophy, Hizbullah’s survival can only be guaranteed with the continued possession of its arsenal and in line with its basic Shiite creed and ideology, so many times mentioned lately relating to the “Karbala syndrome,” the readiness to fight and die (equal to committing suicide) rather than surrender to the conditions of its political rivals.
In that situation, the only path of change could occur in the aftermath of the legislative elections to be held in the spring of 2026 (provided they are held on time). A Hizbullah-Amal victory in securing all 27 Shiite seats in parliament and a revival of old alliances with parts of the Christian and Sunni representatives could lead to the toppling of the present government and reestablish Hizbullah’s stance, thereby preventing further erosion in its power.
