Despite Israeli bombs and assassinations, Hezbollah keeps fighting

Israeli bombs have blown up its munitions stores and killed thousands of its fighters, including many seasoned commanders.

And yet, Hezbollah keeps fighting.

Since Israel invaded southern Lebanon nearly three weeks ago, its forces have confronted a flexible enemy that uses the environment to launch complex and sometimes deadly operations.

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Frequent barrages of Hezbollah rockets scream over the border, and a suicide drone attack on an Israeli military base this past week killed four soldiers. On Wednesday, Hezbollah killed five more soldiers in a clash in southern Lebanon, the latest indication that Israel's swift escalation against the powerful Lebanese militia has left it far from incapacitated.

"Israel has delivered a big blow to the political and military leadership, but it remains to be seen how that affects internal communications and the chain of command," said Nicholas Blanford, a Hezbollah expert at the Atlantic Council, an international affairs organization in Washington.

Helping the group stay in the fight, he said, were nearly two decades of preparation for its next big war with Israel and a flexible structure that allows local commanders to execute their own plans.

"The Hezbollah guys on the ground, their tactical control is still sound and they have a lot of autonomy," Blanford said. "They know what the basic mission is: to hit the Israeli soldiers coming across the line."

In a statement Friday, Hezbollah announced the start of "a new escalatory phase" in its fight with Israel, without providing further detail.

Hezbollah's persistence since the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last month, could also have implications in Israel's fight against another armed group: Hamas. This past week, Israel killed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, after he managed to hide in the Gaza Strip for a year. But given Hezbollah's endurance on the battlefield, the death of Sinwar may not weaken Hamas as much as Israel hopes.

The current conflict in Lebanon began last October, when Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in support of Hamas, its Palestinian ally, after that group launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel that started the Gaza war. Over the next 11 months, Hezbollah and Israel exchanged strikes across the Lebanon-Israel border that caused about 150,000 people to flee their homes in both countries.

Last month, Israel drastically stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah, detonating many of the pagers and walkie-talkies of its members, heavily bombing parts of Lebanon where the group operates and killing many of its senior figures, including Nasrallah.

On Sept. 30, Israel sent ground troops into southern Lebanon in what Israeli officials have described as a limited incursion aimed at destroying Hezbollah's frontline military infrastructure.

Hezbollah's military activities have always been covert, making it hard to assess its capabilities. But before the Gaza war, it was believed to have had 20,000 to 30,000 well-trained fighters and many more reservists; an arsenal of more than 120,000 rockets and missiles; and other sophisticated weapons, including drones and precision-guided missiles that could hit sensitive sites deep inside Israel.

Hezbollah has released little information about how many fighters or weapons it has lost in the past month's attacks. Israeli assessments suggest that much of its arsenal, including more than half of its precision-guided missiles, have been destroyed, in addition to hundreds of its fighters killed and thousands injured, according to two senior military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of army protocols.

One of those officials said that some of the group's key positions had been filled by people whose names Israel did not know because they had previously been so far down the chain of command.

Nevertheless, recent events have provided insights into Hezbollah's abilities.

Its rocket barrages rain on Israel daily and it has fired larger missiles at targets as far away as Tel Aviv, although most have been shot down by Israel's defenses or landed in open areas, doing little damage. The drone strike last Sunday was an exception because it evaded detection and hit a military base some 40 miles from Lebanon, killing four 19-year-old trainee infantrymen and injuring many others.

Despite Israel's vast bombing of southern Lebanon before its invasion, Israeli troops there have found Hezbollah to be a formidable enemy, according to six Israeli military officials involved in the Lebanon campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

In one episode early this month, a soldier entered an abandoned house and was shot dead by a Hezbollah fighter. Other soldiers rushed in to retrieve their comrade and Hezbollah fired on them with anti-tank missiles from multiple directions, starting a firefight that lasted more than four hours.

At one point, an Israeli drone spotted a van rushing Hezbollah fighters to the area in what Israel believed was an attempt to capture soldiers, the officials said. The attempt failed but showed that the group can quickly mobilize its forces based on battlefield developments.

That battle left six soldiers dead and wounded 30 others, the officials said.

Since the invasion began, 18 Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon and two others in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Hezbollah has not said how many of its fighters have been killed in the same period.

"The strikes so far have weakened them but have not collapsed them," said Gershon Hacohen, a retired Israeli major general.

Hezbollah had abandoned its frontline positions, where Israeli troops had found bunkers hiding uniforms, boots, weapons and other combat gear, he said. But they still targeted Israeli forces from a distance.

"They are in distress," Hacohen said. "That doesn't mean they are destroyed. Far from it."

Hezbollah has been fighting Israel for decades, and its guerrilla tactics helped end Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. In the years since, the group, which Israel, the United States and other countries consider a terrorist organization, has evolved into a dominant force in Lebanese politics and the country's most sophisticated military force.

Although Hezbollah's limited antiaircraft weapons leave its members largely helpless against airstrikes, it uses southern Lebanon's landscape to its advantage.

The area's cliffs and ravines limit where Israeli vehicles can move, leaving them exposed to ambushes and roadside bombs. Olive groves and wooded areas provide cover for rocket launchers and entrances to the network of bunkers and tunnels it is believed to have dug in the rocky soil.

Hezbollah uses drones and other surveillance devices to track and target Israeli troops from up to five miles away with guided antitank missiles.

The Israeli military is reluctant to use helicopters to evacuate wounded troops, meaning that injured soldiers must be driven to hospitals on snaking, narrow roads. And the fear that Hezbollah could capture soldiers is so intense that procedures have been emphasized to prevent it. These include using heavy fire, including from drones and helicopters, to prevent Hezbollah from escaping the area or sending in more fighters.

Before the war, Israel often warned that Hezbollah's precision-guided missiles could strike population centers or sensitive sites inside Israel. Experts differ on why the group has launched so few of these to date, with some suggesting the missiles have been destroyed or that Hezbollah is in too much disarray to deploy them.

Blanford said the group could be waiting to use its more powerful weapons until Israel bombs bridges, seaports, power stations or other key infrastructure in Lebanon.

"When the infrastructure starts getting targeted, that is when we are into a full-scale conflict, and we could see Hezbollah resorting to some of the long-range stuff," he said.

But the group's biggest challenge, Blanford said, is how deeply it has been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, as evidenced by Israel's targeted killings of so many leaders.

"The Israeli intelligence penetration could continue to undermine Hezbollah," he said. "There are many other commanders that the Israelis may be able to find and eliminate."