How Israel Can Turn Hezbollah’s Blunder Into Lasting Defeat

Excerpt

“Had I only known …” That was, in substance, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s famous admission after Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel: Had Nasrallah anticipated that a raid to capture two Israeli soldiers would trigger a 34-day conflict that left thousands dead or wounded and displaced approximately 1 million Lebanese and 300,000 to 500,000 Israelis, he “absolutely” would not have ordered it.

The lesson didn’t stick. On October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, Hezbollah committed an even greater blunder and voluntarily opened a second front in support of Gaza. Three years on, Israel has eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military and political leadership, severely degraded its arsenal, pushed it back from the frontier, and established a substantial security zone inside southern Lebanon.

David Daoud is a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.