Hezbollah chain command, rocket force resilient amid 1000s of strikes
6 Min Read
Reuters reports the extreme challenges Israelis will face in any upcoming war with the well-established Resistance group Hezbollah.
-
A Hezbollah Resistance fighter standing behind a rocket launcher in an unknown underground facility dubbed Imad 4 as shown in the footage released by the group in August 2024 (Hezbollah Military Media)
Hezbollah's adaptable command structure, combined with its vast tunnel infrastructure and a significant stockpile of missiles and arms accumulated over the past year, is enabling the Resistance group to endure unprecedented Israeli attacks, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing three sources familiar with Hezbollah's operations.
The Israeli occupation assassinated in the past weeks two of Hezbollah's top military commanders, martyrs Sayyed Fouad Shokor and Ibrahim Aqil, in addition to the chief of its missile unit on Tuesday, martyr Ibrahim Kobeissi, along with other leaders and fighters.
Furthermore, "Israel" launched a mass and unprecedented terrorist attack last week, detonating thousands of pagers and two-way radios, resulting in the martyrdom of tens of citizens and the wounding of over 3,000 others.
Read more: Hezbollah launches drone strike on Israeli base 12km south of Haifa
Since Monday, "Israel" launched an ongoing aggression across Lebanon, particularly areas in South Lebanon and the Bekaa region in the northeast, killing at least 558 people and wounding over 1,800 others.
The Israeli occupation army claimed that the assassination of commander Aqil had shaken the organization, meanwhile also claiming that it had "destroyed thousands" of Hezbollah's rockets and weaponry in widescale strikes.
However, Reuters cited two of the sources as saying that the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon immediately assigned new members to take over the responsibilities of the assassinated leaders.
This was stated publicly again more recently by a member of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, Hussein el-Hajj Hassan, during a speech last week.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has consistently emphasized that whenever a leader is assassinated, a successor is swiftly appointed to take over and fulfill their responsibilities, asserting that Hezbollah is a robust and well-established organization that will remain unshaken, even in the face of the loss of high-ranking commanders.
Read more: Hezbollah attacks Israeli military base with new Fadi-3 rocket
According to the news agency, despite hundreds of Hezbollah members suffering from wounds that hinder them from carrying out their tasks after being targeted in the Israeli pagers terrorist attack, this number remains well below the estimates of a US Congress report released last Friday, which says Hezbollah has between 40,000-50,000 fighters.
Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah confirmed earlier this year that the Resistance group has 100,000 well-trained fighters.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London, said that despite the unprecedented recent Israeli attacks, the organizational structure of Hezbollah helped make it an extremely resilient force.
"This is the most formidable enemy Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not because of numbers and tech but in terms of resilience."
Extreme resilience
Hezbollah has demonstrated its ability to continue operations, launching hundreds of rockets deeper into northern occupied Palestine every day.
The Resistance targeted early Wednesday Tel Aviv – more than 100km away from the Lebanese borders – for the first time ever. Hezbollah said that the target was a Mossad command center in Tel Aviv's suburbs, which is responsible for the assassination of the group's leaders and the pagers' terrorist attack.
Additionally, following the detonation of the pagers and walkie-talkies, Hezbollah's chain of command has remained intact, enabling sustained operations, according to a senior security official as per Reuters.
The report cited three sources as saying that Hezbollah's communication system is supported by a specialized fixed-line telephone network, which the Resistance group considers vital for its operations and remains functional, along with other devices.
Many Resistance fighters also use older pager models, which were unaffected by last week's attack
In the event that the command structure collapses, frontline fighters are trained to operate in small, self-sufficient units drawn from neighboring villages, capable of resisting Israeli forces for prolonged periods.
This strategy was used during the 2006 July War, where Hezbollah fighters managed to hold their ground for weeks in villages occupied by Israeli forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been attempting for months to drag the United States into the war, eyeing an expanded war with Iran, Israeli officials and media reports mentioned.
Read more: Final victory belongs to Hezbollah, Resistance front: Sayyed Khamenei
Hezbollah's resilience has fueled concerns of a prolonged war that could draw in the US and Iran in case the occupation entity launches an invasion into Lebanon.
Nowhere near finishing
Hezbollah revealed last month a massive underground facility, named Imad 4, that can be used not only to store missiles and rockets but would also run as a complete command and control center, equipped with medical facilities and surveillance rooms and capable of holding hundreds of fighters.
The facility is also connected to tunnels large enough for large missile-carrying vehicles to move through.
According to public estimations, Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets. But this number is likely to be much larger.
Despite Israeli air raids, targets, such as long-range missile and drone sites, remain intact.
Read more: Hezbollah showers Israeli military sites in North with 200+ rockets
Boaz Shapira, a researcher at Alma, an Israeli think tank focused on Hezbollah, stated that "Israel" has not yet targeted key strategic locations, including long-range missile and drone sites.
"I don't think we are anywhere near finishing this," he said.
Sayyed Nasrallah confirmed recently that the Resistance group's aresnal of precision-guided weapons has increased significantly in the past years. He emphasized that a fraction of Hezbollah's capabilities were used so far in the battle with "Israel".
Meanwhile, one year into the ongoing genocide, the occupation entity is yet to "dismantle" the tunnels of the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, which are largely less complex and smaller than Hezbollah's.
"It is one of our biggest challenges in Gaza, and it is certainly something we could meet in Lebanon," said Carmit Valensi, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, a think-tank.
Krieg noted that, unlike Gaza, where tunnels are typically dug by hand into sandy soil, Lebanon’s tunnels are carved deep into mountain rock. He explained that this makes them much harder to access and even more difficult to destroy than those in Gaza.
