Hezbollah’s flexible chain of command, along with its extensive network of tunnels and a huge arsenal of missiles and weapons it has built up over the past year, are helping it withstand unprecedented Israeli strikes, three sources with knowledge of the operations told Reuters. of the Lebanese militant organization.

Israel’s attack on Hezbollah last week, including the targeting of high-ranking commanders and the setting off of bugged drones and radios, has shaken the powerful Lebanese Shiite militant group that doubles as a political party.

On Friday, September 20, Israel assassinated the commander who founded and led the elite Radwan force of the organization, Ibrahim Akil. And the health ministry announced that since Monday, Lebanon’s deadliest day in decades, at least 560 people, including 50 children, have been killed in airstrikes.

Israel’s chief of staff, Herchi Halevi, said Sunday that Akil’s death had shaken the organization. Israel says its strikes have also destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets and shells.

But two of the sources with knowledge of Hezbollah’s operations said the group was rushing to appoint replacements for Akil and the other high-ranking officials killed in Friday’s air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on August 1 that the organization quickly fills in the gaps whenever a leader is killed.

A fourth source, a Hezbollah official, said the attack on communications equipment put 1,500 fighters out of action due to their injuries — many lost their sight or hands.

While this is a major blow, it represents only a fraction of Hezbollah’s strength, which according to a report to the US Congress on Friday, numbers 40,000-50,000 fighters. Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters.

Since October, when Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza, it has redeployed fighters to areas of the front in the south, including some from Syria, the three sources said.

It is also bringing rockets into Lebanon at a rapid pace, anticipating a protracted conflict, the sources said, adding that the group wants to avoid an all-out war.

Hezbollah’s main supporter and arms supplier is Iran. The organization is the most powerful in Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” made up of rogue forces across the Middle East. Many of its weapons are Iranian, Russian or Chinese models.

The sources, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, did not provide details about the weapons or where they were purchased.

Hezbollah’s press office did not respond to requests for comment on this report.

Andreas Krieg, a lecturer in International Strategic Studies at King’s College London, said that while Hezbollah’s operations have been disrupted by last week’s attacks, Hezbollah’s networked organizational structure has helped it create an extremely resilient force.

According to Krieg, “he is the most insurmountable enemy Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not in terms of manpower and technology but in terms of resilience.”

Powerful rockets

Hostilities escalated this week. Israel killed another top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, yesterday, Tuesday. For its part, Hezbollah has shown its ability to continue operations, firing hundreds of rockets in Israel’s direction in its deepest attacks ever.

Hezbollah fighters

Today Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv, more than 100 km from the border. Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as a surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems, the Israeli military said.

The group has not yet said whether it has fired any of the most powerful precision-guided rockets in its arsenal, such as the Fateh-110, an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250-300km. Hezbollah’s Fateh-110 carries a warhead of 450 -500 kg, according to work published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Hezbollah rocket attacks are likely because the chain of command continued to function despite a brief period of confusion caused by the firing of buzzers and radios, one of the sources, a senior security official, said.

The three sources said Hezbollah’s ability to communicate is supported by a specialized network of landlines — which it has described as critical to its communications and which remains operational — as well as other devices.

Many of her fighters carried older models of buzzers, for example, that were unaffected by last week’s attack.

Reuters could not independently confirm the information. Most of the injuries from the detonated buzzers were recorded in Beirut, away from the front.

Hezbollah has been ramping up its use of buzzers after it banned its fighters from using cellphones on the battlefield in February in response to the killing of commanders in strikes.

If the chain of command is broken, frontline fighters are trained to operate in small, independent clusters consisting of a few villages near the border, and can fight Israeli forces for long periods, the senior source said.

This is exactly what happened in 2006, during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel, when the group’s fighters resisted for weeks, some in villages on the front line where Israel invaded.

Israel says it has escalated the attacks in order to damage Hezbollah’s capabilities and make it safe for thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes near the border with Lebanon, which they abandoned when Hezbollah began firing rockets on October 8.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has said it prefers to reach a negotiated deal that would see Hezbollah withdraw from the border area, but Israel is prepared to continue its bombing campaign if Hezbollah refuses, and has not ruled out any military option.

Hezbollah’s resilience means the hostilities have raised fears of a protracted war that could involve the US, a close ally of Israel, and Iran — particularly if Israel launches a ground operation in southern Lebanon and bogs down she.

Israel’s military did not respond to a request for comment for this report.

Iranian President Massoud Pezheskian warned on Monday of “irreversible” consequences of an all-out war in the Middle East. A State Department official said the US disagrees with Israel’s escalation strategy and seeks to reduce tensions.

Underground armory

In what two of the sources said was an indication of how well Hezbollah’s weapons are hidden, on Sunday rockets were fired from areas of southern Lebanon that had been targeted by Israel shortly before, the two sources said.

Hezbollah reportedly has an underground arsenal and last month released footage that appeared to show its fighters driving trucks with rocket launchers through tunnels. The sources did not specify whether the rockets fired on Sunday were fired underground.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad said Monday’s barrage destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets and ammunition.

The Israeli military said long-range cruise missiles, rockets with warheads capable of carrying 100 kilograms of explosives, short-range rockets and explosive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were hit on Monday.

Reuters could not independently confirm the military’s claims.

Boaz Shapira, a researcher at Alma, an Israeli think tank specializing in Hezbollah, said Israel has not yet targeted strategic facilities such as long-range missile sites and unmanned aerial vehicles.

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end of this,” Shapira said.

Hezbollah’s arsenal reportedly includes about 150,000 rockets, the US congressional report said. Krieg said its most powerful long-range ballistic missiles are stored underground.

Hezbollah has been building a network of tunnels for years that, according to Israeli calculations, stretches for hundreds of kilometers. The Israeli military said Monday’s airstrikes hit Hezbollah rocket launchers under houses in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians. Hezbollah has not issued a statement on the impact of the Israeli strikes since Monday.

Tunnels

The group’s arsenal and tunnels have been expanded since the 2006 war, particularly with remote-controlled precision systems, leader Nasrallah said. Hezbollah officials have said the group has used little of its arsenal in hostilities over the past year.

Israeli officials have said that Hezbollah’s military infrastructure is tightly woven into the villages and communities of southern Lebanon, with ammunition and rocket launchers placed in homes across the region. Israel has been pounding some of these villages for months in order to damage Hezbollah’s capabilities.

Confirmed details of the tunnel network remain scant.

A 2021 report by Alma, the Israeli think tank specializing in Hezbollah, said Iran and North Korea helped build the tunnel network after the 2006 war.

Israel had already tried to kill Hamas commanders and autonomous militant units from the tunnels that cut through Gaza.

“It’s one of the biggest challenges we face in Gaza, and it’s certainly something we might encounter in Lebanon,” said Carmit Valencia, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank in Tel Aviv.

Krieg said that unlike Gaza, where most tunnels have been dug by hand in sandy soil, the tunnels in Lebanon have been dug deep into rock. “They are much less accessible than Gaza and even less easy to destroy.”