The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies.
While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government. The practical consequence of this is escalation: Hezbollah is seeking to repair and rebuild its capacities, no force in Lebanon is willing or able to stop this, and Israel, aware of Hezbollah’s intentions towards it, is determined to keep the organization weak and possesses the capacity to do so.
This dynamic reflects how much has changed in the Middle East over the last two years. Prior to last year, Lebanese Hezbollah was often referred to as the world’s most powerful non-state military actor. Pundits on sundry television channels would gravely intone that the organization’s capacities outweighed those of many states. This is true: before 2024, Iran’s first and still primary proxy political-military group had enjoyed a three-decade run of near-constant forward motion.
Hezbollah in its first iteration struck telling blows against US, French and Israeli forces in central Lebanon in the early 1980s. It then fought a successful 15-year insurgency against Israel, which resulted in the unilateral withdrawal of Jerusalem’s forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. In 2006, having declined to end its war following the withdrawal six years earlier, Hezbollah again fought an inconclusive but bloody three-week conflict against Israel. This followed a murderous cross-border incursion by the organization.
In 2008, Hezbollah brushed aside efforts by its domestic opponents to curtail its authority within Lebanon. The precipitating factor was the official government’s efforts to assert itself regarding security arrangements at Rafik Hariri International Airport, but the matter soon escalated to a test as to whose word was final in the country.
Supporters of Hezbollah and their allies, the Amal movement, quickly occupied west Beirut. The supporters of the rival, pro-western March 14 movement were brushed aside. The matter was settled in Hezbollah’s favor. It still remains settled: witness the frightened official government’s determination to avoid any confrontation with the movement.
Its ascendancy in Lebanon assured, and its enemy to the south apparently locked into a pattern of mutual deterrence, Hezbollah was free to engage in campaigns further afield. Between 2013 and 2018 period, its fighters played a central role in defending the Assad regime in Syria.
It’s worth noting that by this time, Hezbollah had, at least among many western observers, acquired the mythical status alluded to at the beginning. I remember a European diplomat at a conference in 2015 asking me how it was that the Syrian rebels had until then managed to avoid comprehensive defeat, given that Hezbollah was engaged against them.
This long run of success has now been broken. The persons who Hezbollah supporters should hold accountable for this are no longer available for reprimand. They are, firstly, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who chose to launch an assault on Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023 without informing his various allies in the Iran-led regional axis. In so doing, he obligated them to come to his assistance at a time when they neither desired nor were ready for all-out war against Israel. And secondly, Hezbollah’s historic leader Hassan Nasrallah, who chose on October 8 to open a support front against Israel on Hamas’s behalf.
Nasrallah, it appeared, had not understood that the rules had changed. He believed his own propaganda regarding Israel’s hesitancy and its fears of losses. He assumed that this would mean that Jerusalem would avoid an all out confrontation with his movement. He was wrong.
Both Sinwar and Nasrallah died at Israel’s hands in the subsequent war. Israel focused on Hamas and responded only defensively against Hezbollah until the late summer of 2024, then moved on to the offensive. The extent to which intelligence was used to penetrate the organization was revealed in the weaponization of Hezbollah’s electronic devices, which decimated the movement’s mid-level leadership cadre, and in the targeted killings of its top leadership, including Nasrallah. An air campaign destroyed Hezbollah’s long-range missile capacity. A ground maneuver drove it away from the border. Battered, Hezbollah reversed the late Nasrallah’s expressed decision and agreed to a separate ceasefire with Israel in November last year.
Since the ceasefire, a three-way stand-off has been under way. Hezbollah, like the rest of the Iran-led regional axis is, with the exception of the late Assad regime in Syria, down but not out. Massively weakened by the war, the organization is trying to get back on its feet. There are cash injections from Iran and efforts to replace anti-tank weaponry and missile capacity.
Hezbollah’s new leader is Sheikh Naim Qassem. Qassem was in the past the lead intellectual and theorist of the movement. He used to be the man tasked with meeting western delegations and explaining the inevitability of Hezbollah’s victory to them. As leader, he is, until now at least, judged to have put in only a lackluster performance. Much of the Iranian monies are going toward compensating the families of dead Hezbollah fighters. Around 5,000 men from the organization are reckoned to have died in these two years of war. Still, the movement’s intention is clear, and it is to rebuild its lost strength.
Israel is determined to prevent this by all available means. A central lesson of October 7 for the Jewish state is that seeking to achieve quiet through mutual deterrence with the armed Islamist militias on its borders is a fool’s errand. These organizations adhere to a religious and ideological outlook which trumps self-interest and pragmatism. They must therefore be kept physically weak. Since its achievements in the last months of 2024, Israel has been engaged in an active campaign to disrupt Hezbollah’s ability to rebuild its capacities. Around 350 of the organization’s men have been killed in this process. Ali Haytham Tabatabai was the latest of them.
The final and least consequential side of the triangle is the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. Since August of this year, the government of Lebanon has been committed to disarming Hezbollah. Some progress has been made south of the Litani river. Hezbollah has made clear that it will not allow itself to be disarmed north of the river. No one seriously expects the government in Beirut to confront the organization. Which means that as of now, the largely two-way contest between Israel and Iran’s proxy in Lebanon is set to continue.
The ball is currently in Hezbollah’s court. But the movement faces a dilemma. Respond forcefully, and it runs the risk of bringing down a further heavy Israeli retribution before it has had time to prepare adequately. Fail to respond, and it faces the further loss of its prestige, both in the eyes of its own Shia constituency and beyond it. As of now, it looks likely that Hezbollah will bide its time and seek to continue to rebuild. But the contest between Israel and Hezbollah is far from over. Another round of high-intensity combat at some stage remains a probability.
