Tunnels and flexible strategies help Hezbollah withstand Israel

Israel's attack on Hezbollah last week, which included targeting senior commanders and detonating electronic devices, has stunned the powerful Shiite militant group.

On September 20, Israel killed the group’s founding commander and leader of the elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil. And since the start of this week, Lebanon’s bloodiest day of violence in decades, the Lebanese Health Ministry says more than 560 people, including 50 children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli army chief of staff Gen. Herzi Halevi said on September 22 that Aqil's death had shaken Hezbollah. Israeli airstrikes had also destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets and artillery shells.

Smoke rises from damaged buildings in southern Lebanon following an Israeli airstrike, September 25. Photo: Reuters

However, two sources familiar with Hezbollah’s operations said the group quickly named replacements for Aqil and other senior figures killed in a September 20 airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also said in a speech on August 1 that the group could quickly fill a void whenever a leader was killed.

A Hezbollah official said the attack on communications equipment left 1,500 fighters out of action with injuries, many of them blinded or missing arms.

While it was a devastating blow, the number of wounded fighters represents only a fraction of Hezbollah's strength. A report to the US Congress on September 20 said Hezbollah had 40,000 to 50,000 fighters, while Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters.

Hezbollah has also moved quickly to bring missiles into Lebanon, sources said, predicting a protracted conflict. Hezbollah's main backer and arms supplier is Iran. The group is the most powerful faction in Tehran's "Axis of Resistance" of allied forces across the Middle East.

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the Department of Security Studies at King's College London, said that although Hezbollah's operations were disrupted by last week's attacks, the group's networked organizational structure made it an extremely resilient force.

"This is the most formidable opponent Israel has ever faced on the battlefield, not in terms of numbers or technology but in terms of resilience," Krieg assessed.

Members of the Israeli army at the scene of a damaged house after a rocket attack from Lebanon, September 25. Photo: Reuters

Powerful Missile

Fighting has escalated this week. On September 24, Israel killed another senior Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi. Hezbollah, for its part, has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel in increasingly deep attacks.

On September 25, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv, more than 100 kilometers from the border. Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defenses, according to the Israeli military.

Hezbollah has not said whether it has launched any of its most powerful precision-guided missiles, such as the Fateh-110, an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250 to 300 kilometers. According to a 2018 paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Hezbollah’s Fateh-110 missile has a 450 to 500 kilogram warhead.

A senior security official said Hezbollah was able to launch the missile attacks because the chain of command was functioning normally, despite the group experiencing a brief period of chaos after pagers and walkie-talkies exploded.

Underground arsenal

In a sign that some Hezbollah weapons are being hidden, two sources said, rockets were launched on September 22 from areas in southern Lebanon that had recently been targeted by Israel.

Hezbollah is believed to have an underground weapons cache. Last month, the group released footage that appeared to show fighters driving trucks carrying missile launchers through tunnels. The sources did not specify whether the missiles fired on September 22 were launched from underground.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the September 23 attack destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah missiles and ammunition. Long-range cruise missiles, missiles with warheads capable of carrying 100 kg of explosives, short-range missiles and explosive drones were all hit.

Boaz Shapira, a researcher at the Alma research organization that specializes in Hezbollah, said Israel had not yet targeted strategic sites such as long-range missiles and drone sites.

Hezbollah's arsenal is believed to include about 150,000 missiles, according to a US congressional report. Krieg said the group's most powerful long-range ballistic missiles are stored underground.

The Israeli military said air strikes on September 23 hit Hezbollah rocket launch sites hidden under houses in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah said it did not place military infrastructure near civilians.

Tunnel network

Hezbollah has spent years building a network of tunnels that Israel estimates stretch hundreds of kilometers.

Hezbollah’s arsenal and tunnels have expanded since the 2006 war, particularly its precision-guided systems, Nasrallah said. Hezbollah officials said the group had used only a small portion of its arsenal in the war over the past year.

Israeli officials say Hezbollah’s military infrastructure is tightly linked to villages and communities in southern Lebanon, with ammunition and rocket launchers stored in homes across the region. Israel has been attacking some of those villages for months to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities.

Confirmed details about the tunnel network remain scarce. Israel has struggled to purge Hamas commanders and militia units from tunnels that crisscross Gaza.

“This is one of our biggest challenges in Gaza, and certainly something we can solve in Lebanon,” said Carmit Valensi, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

But unlike Gaza, where most tunnels are hand-dug into sandy soil, the tunnels in Lebanon are dug deep into rocky terrain, according to Krieg. "They are much harder to access than in Gaza and even harder to destroy."

Hoai Phuong (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/duong-ham-va-chien-luoc-linh-hoat-dang-giup-hezbollah-tru-vung-truoc-hoa-luc-cua-israel-post314032.html