The life expectancy for Hezbollah leaders is getting pretty short these days. In the early morning hours of Oct. 4, Israel struck several buildings near Beirut, Lebanon , reducing them all to rubble.
The target of the strike was Hashem Safieddine, the cousin of and apparent successor to Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s founder and longtime leader , who himself was killed less than a week prior in another massive Israeli airstrike.
Safieddine was reportedly meeting with what’s left of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. It wasn’t immediately clear before publish time whether anyone survived the strike.
"Israel is demonstrating what almost absolute intelligence understanding of another organization looks like," Jon Molik , an active U.S. intelligence officer, said.
"This is an interesting scenario because Hezbollah is, without a doubt, reeling," Molik said. "It’s true to say that at times if you just cut off the head of an organization, if the organization is strong enough, another person can find his way into the leadership position and the organization can kind of stumble forward and regain its feet. This is not the case for Hezbollah right now."
In addition to targeting Hezbollah’s leadership, the Israel Defense Forces are also going after the group on the ground. Earlier this week, Israel invaded southern Lebanon for the fourth time in Israel's history. However, Molik thinks Israel is in a much stronger position this time, and all the work the IDF did to prepare the battlespace seems to be paying off.
"There are indirect fire attacks, and [Hezbollah fighters are] throwing some squad-level elements at the Israelis. But, you know, they just don't have a central command from Beirut right now," Molik said in an exclusive interview with Straight Arrow News. "It's going to be, I hate to use the word ‘easy,’ but it isn't going to be as challenging for Israel to conduct the operations in southern Lebanon against these Hezbollah fighters — as it was a few decades ago. Because Hezbollah is just not in a place to respond in any organized way."
Not only is Israel in a stronger position this time around, but Israel also won’t be dealing with many of the same constraints that the battlespace in Gaza presented.
Gaza’s pre-war population was more than 2 million people, and they were all packed into a very small space. Israel blocked off or closed all of the border crossings from Gaza into Israel, and Egypt closed its border with Gaza as well.
There was a lot of potential for human collateral damage in the area, which really constrained what Israel was able to do. There was a lot of urban warfare and building-to-building fighting between Israel and Hamas. Obviously, the underground tunnels were a huge concern too.
So the fighting in Gaza is a different style than what Israel might be facing in Lebanon's South, where there are open fields. The area is certainly nowhere near as populated as Gaza.
Molik said Israel's primary goal will be to clear Hezbollah fighters in the area between its northern border and the Litani River, a little less than 20 miles away. That would create enough of a buffer space that most of Hezbollah’s rockets and artillery would be fairly ineffective attacking Israel’s North.
It's also why Molik said it’s worth it for Israel to take its time and do the operation right, and not rush anything.
"The whole purpose of the operation isn't to seize territory," Molik said. "That's what Russia wanted to do initially. They wanted to seize Kiev. It wasn't about killing every single Ukrainian soldier and taking every single town on the way there.
"This operation in Israel is different. It's not about seizing territory. It's about literally taking care of, eliminating – whatever the language you want to use – every single munition point and every single soldier. If they take it slowly now, and they're able to verify and validate they've removed all of those locations and all of those personnel, they can head back to Israel and open up a clear space for those 60-ish thousand Israelis to return to the North.
"And then Hezbollah is going to have to take years and years and years in order to reestablish itself. And potentially Israel isn’t going to let that happen like they did before. That's kind of for another discussion, but at least right now, Israel wants to make sure that there is zero Hezbollah left in any place south of the Litani River. It's a good analogy to say ‘slow is smooth and smooth is fast’ in this instance."
And if Israel is successful at pushing Hezbollah back, and maybe dismantling the organization, Molik said that could open up room for Lebanon’s official army to return to the region and maybe help prevent another Iranian proxy from setting up shop.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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