Lessons From Israel’s Operation to Dismantle Hezbollah

By Dave Pitts

Pitts is a senior national security executive with over four decades of experience ranging from counterterrorism and special operations to regional and global affairs. Pitts served as the Assistant Director of CIA for South and Central Asia and was responsible for all CIA activities and engagement across South and Central Asia and for policy coordination in Washington.

By Glenn Corn

Glenn Corn is a former Senior Executive in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked for 34 years in the U.S. Intelligence, Defense, and Foreign Affairs communities.  He spent over 17 years serving overseas and served as the U.S. President’s Senior Representative on Intelligence and Security issues.  He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of World Politics.

EXPERT OPINION — Many may have thought that the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was untouchable in Lebanon, and that an unprovoked Israeli attack on Nasrallah in Beirut was too high-risk, politically and otherwise. In ordinary times, that may have been accurate. But the Hamas attack on Israel one year ago, and Hezbollah’s supporting strikes into Israel, changed the status quo. Attacking Hezbollah directly, including Nasrallah, became a necessity for the defense of Israel. The death of Nasrallah last month was a significant development, but it was only one part of Israel’s calculated, methodical steps to dismantle Hezbollah and to cripple Iran’s network of terrorism surrogates that threaten Israel.

Israel’s strategic campaign against Hezbollah offers lessons in dismantling a terrorist organization. The attacks demonstrate that the Israeli Intelligence Community learned important examples from problems it  faced in Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, and has used those lessons over the past three weeks. Israel has developed and executed a sustained and methodical approach that can not only destroy or disrupt operational capability, but also represents a level of cognitive warfare that can delay and disrupt decision-making, create chaos and panic, destroy morale, undermine security and communications discipline, and shatter narratives of strength and invincibility. Combined, these effects have placed  incredible pressure on remaining Hezbollah leaders to hold the organization together, protect operation capability, establish protected communications, and to re-establish a command structure that can make decisions in the face of continuing attacks. 

What is Israel doing to degrade and dismantle Hezbollah? Let’s take a look at approaches that are foundational to effective counterterrorism operations. We often evaluate these actions in isolation of the others, which misses the point. It’s important to look at the combined, reinforcing impact of these actions, which can have devastating impact on even the most capable terrorist organizations.

Building and Sustaining an Intelligence Advantage

One of Israel’s best weapons has been the intelligence advantage it holds over Hezbollah. Israel’s pager and hand-held radio attacks, rapid elimination of Hezbollah leadership, and assassination of Nasrallah – all carried out in less that a month – have  made clear that Israel had successfully penetrated Hezbollah, both from a human and technical perspective. And Israel protected that intelligence advantage until the time was right. 

Israel likely also understands its own intelligence gaps, and is using ongoing operations to increase its intelligence collection, as Hezbollah responds to these major strikes. This intelligence advantage provides Israel with a clear advantage in making timely, high-impact decisions – decisions that to date have been devastating for Hezbollah. Israel’s precision attacks on communications systems, weapons and infrastructure targets, and leadership have also dramatically reasserted Israel’s intelligence capabilities, which had come under scrutiny following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. The Israeli campaign most likely also included a sophisticated offensive counterintelligence effort that both denied Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors information on how deeply the terrorist organization was penetrated until it was too late. That intelligence penetration also deceived Nasrallah and his leadership team into believing they were in a better position to deal with any renewed expanded war with Israel.

Exploiting the Technological Edge

Israel has impressive technological capability; it is a world leader in some areas. The country has used that technological edge against Hezbollah with deadly effect. Cyber penetrations, advanced sensors, bunker busters, precision weapons, UAVs, and communications intercept capability represent just some of the advanced technologies employed by Israel against Hezbollah. Israel’s ability to find, track, and eliminate elusive and well-protected human targets, weaponize the tiny spaces within pagers and hand-held radios, monitor the communications of security-minded leadership, and precisely target and eliminate multiple weapons and infrastructure targets all result from this technological edge. 

Hezbollah’s use of pagers and hand-held radios may have appeared clever – a way of avoiding highly traceable mobile phones – but it allowed Hezbollah to become complacent, and it opened up new vulnerabilities that Israel exploited technologically and through supply-chain exploitation. Hezbollah’s approach is reminiscent of al-Qaeda’s decision to avoid technical communications in favor of couriers, which it believed provided greater protection from strikes. Like Hezbollah, al-Qaeda’s decision to avoid high-tech devices simply exposed other vulnerabilities that the U.S. effectively exploited with other technologies. Now Israel has done the same. When combined with an intelligence advantage, a technological edge can put an adversary in a precarious position.

Eliminating the leadership

Israel’s approach to eliminating Hezbollah leadership has been incredibly effective and will likely remain a priority as long as there are viable leadership targets. We know from U.S. experiences against al-Qaeda and ISIS that it takes more than decapitation of senior leaders to dismantle a terrorist organization; terrorist groups do recover from senior leadership losses. However, Hezbollah’s loss of multiple layers of leadership, including top leader Nasrallah, has denied the group decades of experience, credibility, influence, and decision-making. These leadership losses, especially the loss of a leader with the recognition and influence of Nasrallah, also impacts Hezbollah’s reputation, morale, and cohesion. 

Israel has now pushed Hezbollah into a leadership crisis. Emerging Hezbollah leaders that are rushed into new positions should expect to be quickly targeted by Israel; at least one newly-appointed Hezbollah leader in the current war has already been killed. No doubt the group will continue to identify new leaders, but Nasrallah and his key leaders may ultimately prove irreplaceable. 

Disrupting and undermining confidence in internal communications

Terrorist organizations like Hezbollah survive on operational security, and specifically communications security, and they will go to extraordinary lengths to protect their communications. Hezbollah believed its use of pagers and hand-held radios provided that protection. Israel’s attack using those pagers and hand-held radios began Israel’s own version of “shock and awe” against Hezbollah. 

Those attacks clearly signaled that Hezbollah communications had been penetrated and crippled Hezbollah communications; all of which likely enabled follow-on leadership strikes against Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s severely degraded communications will not recover quickly, and it will take even longer for Hezbollah to have confidence in any internal communications system given Israel’s demonstrated intelligence and technology capabilities. And of course, the absence of a strong communications system is a nightmare for any group in the midst of war. 

Destroying infrastructure and weapons

Hezbollah has been a powerful terrorist organization for decades primarily because of its weapons arsenal, which is reported to include 200,000 rockets, mortars, and missiles. That’s formidable by any measure. 

Israel made destroying launch sites and missiles a priority in its preemptive attacks on Hezbollah as a means to alter the balance of power. Hezbollah still has the means to launch deadly missile attacks on Israel, but Israel appears prepared to accept that risk as it continues to attack and degrade Hezbollah’s arsenal, particularly those weapons positioned near the Israeli border. Along with Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal, Israel has eliminated essential Hezbollah infrastructure, including command and control, communications, weapons storage, training, observation posts, and border facilities—anything that enables Hezbollah warfighting capability. Tunnel infrastructure closer to the Israeli border will be top priority for cross-border operations into Lebanon.

What comes next?

Israel’s precision campaign to dismantle Hezbollah as a terrorist organization has been executed successfully so far, but significant challenges remain. Israel knows that this operational approach will only go so far in dismantling Hezbollah without direct engagement on the ground. Israel has now initiated targeted ground operations to neutralize Hezbollah’s tunnel networks, destroy weapons, collect important intelligence, and deny Hezbollah key terrain near the border. Much like U.S. counterterrorism operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel’s ground operations will be essential for maintaining pressure and denying Hezbollah any chance of recovery.

And as CIA Director William Burns told The Cipher Brief Threat Conference Monday, “It’s really important…to keep in mind that the bigger challenge is going to be to translate those tactical successes into an effective strategy that marries the use of force, which is really important, especially in dealing with despicable terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but marrying it with good intelligence and ultimately smart diplomacy to try to produce a ceasefire.”

Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, but it is certainly more than that, and Israel’s objectives certainly go beyond counterterrorism. As the central force in Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, Hezbollah has been Iran’s insurance policy to deter and punish any Israeli attacks on Iran. Over time, Hezbollah became a threat too large and powerful to ignore. Israel calculated how, when, and under what circumstances it could conduct preemptive strikes to cripple Hezbollah leadership and infrastructure,  while mitigating the risk of broader regional conflict. But Iran’s role as Hezbollah’s sponsor means Israel must also consider potential escalation, and it has almost certainly already planned for any Iranian retaliation, counting on U.S. support in such a scenario.

Meanwhile, there are considerable risks in initiating ground operations of this scale in Lebanon, particularly given the need to limit civilian casualties. Israel has signaled that it will focus on targeted raids, aiming to avoid widespread destruction while disabling Hezbollah’s capabilities. Good intelligence, precision weapons, and disciplined forces can help meet these objectives, but the potential for civilian casualties in densely populated areas is high. Hezbollah’s history of using civilian locations to house weapons and launch missiles directly will directly contribute to casualties.

There are also risks in how and when Israel concludes these operations. Hezbollah is weakened and reeling from Israeli attacks, but it is not defeated. Leaving a damaged enemy in place that is sworn to your destruction is one of those risks. We can expect Israel to continue its operations against Hezbollah until it assesses that whatever is left poses only manageable threats to Israel. Israel is unlikely to bow to political solutions that leave a dangerous version of Hezbollah in place on its border. We in the United States would not do so.   

Israel’s approach reflects its reputation for bold, decisive action; it is not known for half measures. Israel’s ongoing operations against Hezbollah demonstrate a calculated, multi-faceted approach to dismantling a powerful terrorist organization embedded in Lebanon and backed by Iran. Israel is aware that Hezbollah remains a formidable adversary. Israel’s success depends on sustaining pressure on Hezbollah while managing the risks of political fallout and a broader regional war. Finally, with Israel’s continued destruction of Hezbollah’s capabilities and elimination of the organization’s ability to maintain power in Lebanon, Israel and the international community need to pay close attention to the forces that will attempt to fill the vacuum created by Hezbollah’s destruction and support the government of Lebanon to finally retake control over the fate of their own country from Iran’s proxy army

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. 

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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