Hezbollah had to save face and make amends after a week that exposed its great vulnerability to Israel. In response to the sabotage of its telecommunications systems, then the decapitation of the command of its elite Radwan unit, the Lebanese Shiite party launched its response on the night of Saturday 21 to Sunday 22 September by targeting military sites within a radius of fifty kilometres in the north of the Hebrew State, which forced more than 100,000 Israelis to seek shelters for hours, a victory in itself, in the eyes of the Party of God. Schools in northern Israel were closed, as was the airspace.
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Instead of the “terrible punishment” As promised, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has therefore opted for a graduated response, aimed at demonstrating the resilience of his organization and its ability to extend its scope of action, without provoking an uncontrolled escalation. On Sunday, at the funeral of two senior commanders of the movement, killed Friday in an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut along with fourteen members of the Radwan force and at least thirty-five civilians, his number two, Sheikh Naim Qassem, announced “a new phase” in the battle against Israel.
Believing that the Hebrew state is still not ready to engage in an open confrontation in Lebanon, Hezbollah leaders present as an ultimate form of resistance the continuation of the war of attrition that they began on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas attack in Israel, in support of the Gaza Strip taken under a deluge of fire. However, this war of attrition carries a very high risk of escalation, while Israeli leaders are now making the return of displaced populations in the north of their country a priority and have announced “shift the center of gravity of the war to the North.”
Israeli determination
A climate of barely concealed triumphalism reigns among Israeli civilian and military leaders. We have inflicted on Hezbollah a series of blows that it could never have imagined” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. “No country in the world would accept that its cities are under continuous rocket fire. We do not accept it either. We will take all necessary actions to restore security and bring our people home.”. “The past week has been the most difficult in Hezbollah’s history”for his part, assured the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, in front of the military leaders of the Northern Command.
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