Illustrative image.
Hezbollah has begun a major strategic review that includes considering scaling back its role as an armed movement without disarming completely, Reuters reported on July 4, citing three sources familiar with the deliberations.
The group took heavy losses during the last war with Israel, which continues to launch strikes against Lebanon and refuses to withdraw from five strategic posts in the south of the country, challenging a ceasefire brokered by the United States last November.
One of the sources who spoke to Reuters revealed that Hezbollah had been holding clandestine discussions on its next steps. Small committees have been meeting in person or remotely to discuss issues including the group’s leadership structure, political role, social and development work, and weapons, the official said.
According to the report, Hezbollah is also considering handing over missiles and drones, but not anti-tank missiles and guns, provided Israel withdraws its remaining troops from southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem said in a speech on July 2 that the “Lebanese resistance” would not surrender its weapons and “will not accept being humiliated” or accept “surrendering its land or weapons to the Israeli enemy, nor will it accept relinquishing the rights guaranteed by international and divine laws.”
“Hezbollah has an agreement with Israel indirectly through the Lebanese state. Let Israel abide by the agreement it concluded with the Lebanese state,” he said, adding that Israel has made thousands of violations of the ceasefire agreement that came into effect.
A recent report by the Saudi Al Hadath channel said that Hezbollah suggested that it was open to the idea of withdrawing “to the north” after Israel removes its troops from southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Al Akhbar newspaper, a Lebanese newspaper close to Hezbollah, said that a Lebanese with ties to the American administration was negotiating with Hezbollah about the assurances the group would be given in exchange for disarming.
While giving up on heavy weapons like missiles and drones can be seen as a defeat to Hezbollah, such a daring step could in fact make the group stronger.
Hezbollah built its reputation as a highly-capable professional force during the 1990s. At the time the group had just a few thousand ideological-motivated, highly-trained, and well-equipped fighters. Most of the group’s operations were well-planned and executed raids and ambushes that inflicted heavy losses on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and its proxy, the Southern Lebanon Army.
In the early 2000s, the group very much followed the same approach. During the war of 2006, which is widely considered one of Israel’s biggest military failures, the group reportedly fought with just one thousand fighters.
However, the war saw Hezbollah expanding the use of heavy rockets and the group’s first use of other types of advanced weapons such as anti-ship missiles and suicide drones. Israel took losses, but only because the IDF was not prepared for such threats.
What followed the 2006 war was a very ambitious expansion of Hezbollah and a major shift in the group’s tactics from asymmetric to more traditional warfare.
This change became clear when Hezbollah intervened in Syria after 2011 to support the government of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad.
The group fought like a regular army there, employing heavy weapons like main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. Reports also revealed that it began to prioritize the expansion of its missile and drone arsenal, even working to build a complete air defense network in Lebanon.
Amid the war in Syria, the group leader Hassan Nassrallah boasted about having more than one hundred thousand fighters.
While this enlargement allowed Hezbollah to play a bigger regional role, from Syria to Iraq and even reportedly in Yemen, it came with a heavy cost. Many of the group’s newer fighters, especially those in regular or reserve units, were less ideological, or enlisted just to get certain benefits. Others just didn’t take operation security seriously.
As a result of these factors and others, like the proliferation of digital communications, Israeli intelligence had an unprecedented chance to penetrate deep into Hezbollah.
While Israeli intelligence was watching Hezbollah closer than ever, the IDF was developing its air defenses, especially missile interceptors, like never before.
The last war came to expose everything wrong with Hezbollah’s post-2006 doctrine. The group had no real operational security with nearly all of its original leadership, including Nasrallah, getting assassinated, its regular-styled units failed to stop the IDF in southern Lebanon and most importantly, its costly missile and drone arsenal didn’t perform so well in the face of Israeli air defenses.
Considering these results, it is completely logical of Hezbollah to consider returning to the pre-2006 doctrine. In fact, this is the right thing to do.
With the fall of the Assad regime, all of Hezbollah supply lines, which pass through Syria, were served. Thus, rebuilding, or just maintaining, the group’s existent missile and drone arsenal will be more costly and difficult.
Downsizing and returning to asymmetric warfare will be more effective and affordable for Hezbollah. It will also improve the group’s operation security. In addition, Israel will have less excuses to justify its actions against Lebanon.
To narrow the technological and firepower gap with the IDF, Hezbollah could adopt new flexible weapon systems, like FPV suicide droenes. Such systems are easier to obtain, maintain and hide. At the same time, they can be more damaging than more complex military systems.
Hezbollah appears to be heading in the right direction, although the process will be difficult and could tarnish the image of the group among its supporters.
The group’s new leadership under the command of Qassem has so far proven to be capable of taking more flexible decisions. Considering the fact that the conflict with Israel is not yet over, this is exactly the type of leadership the group needs to survive and strike back.
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hezbollah is integrating into the lebanese state
but syria will slaughter them as soon as they lay down their weapons.
stopped reading when you wrote that hezbollah is a “terror group”. it’s sad that you have zionists writing worthless slop articles on southfront now.
you have reading comprehension problem? article is objective and actually paints an accurate picture of hezbollah – which happens to be a positive one. no zionist bias whatsoever.
artsakh was a test case, russian leadership failed miserably to protect its interests in order to ingratiate itself with treacherous pro-zionist azerbaijan and ancient enemy turkey. the ukraine war might have been prevented, the overthrow of syria prevented. the fact that you very often can’t tell the difference between “pro-russian” media and “western” media, to me, is proof that the russian state is not a serious adversary of russia’s enemies.
but israel doesn’t honor agreements and us assurances are worthless. not that the author doesn’t have a point, but still…
anybody else think that beirut explosion was a small nuke?
the lion of judah is dismembering hezbollah…heheheeh
why all russias allies are useless clowns
its just a lie which source . hezbollah clearly told source from hezbollah its only the truth not any other . so this giving up arms is just a talk. infect hezbollah si preparing for next round at same time with iran and houthis to hit israel.
hezbollah will be even more powerful when they give up all weapons!
sad and stupid cope from south front!!!
why hezbollah believes the idf and hts will not attack hezbollah