A year after Israel's aggressive military campaign that combined a massive air offensive, targeted assassinations of top commanders and a limited ground incursion, Hezbollah has reasserted a defiant stance, shifting from the more subdued tone it adopted after being forced to accept the Nov. 27, 2024, cease-fire agreement.
The Iran-backed group now claims it has fully recovered, restructured its military capabilities and rebuilt its command structure. Most critically, it insists it will never relinquish its weapons and categorically refuses to disarm, arguing that its arsenal -- or what remains of it -- is still the only effective means to defend Lebanon and deter Israel.
With Israel claiming to have destroyed 70% to 80% of Hezbollah's rocket capabilities, military experts say the group -- having made a strategic mistake by opening a front in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023 -- has lost its deterrent power and may risk provoking another devastating Israeli war by refusing to fully disarm.
"Hezbollah doesn't appear to have learned the lessons of what happened last year and doesn't really understand the implications of their behavior," said Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.
"They believe something on the battlefield could still tip the balance of power in their favor."
Hezbollah's position has been bolstered by renewed Iranian support, including a visit to Beirut by Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, who attended a ceremony Saturday to commemorate the assassination of the group's charismatic leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, and his designated successor, Hashem Safieddine. Both were killed a year ago.
"This has worsened the situation. Now, Hezbollah feels that they are not left alone -that they have a regional power behind them -- although, I'm not sure Iran is still a regional power after what happened over the last few months." Khashan told UPI, referring to the 12-day war in June when Israel struck Iranian military and nuclear sites and killed some of its top scientists and commanders.
Like Hezbollah, Iran is bracing for another war with Israel and has reportedly begun rebuilding the missile production sites that were targeted during the first round of strikes.
However, the critical question is how many missiles Hezbollah has and whether it retains the capability to launch them, considering the extent of Israeli intelligence infiltration.
"What Hezbollah might expect from their missiles is grossly exaggerated," Khashan said, warning that the power disparity between Israel and Hezbollah makes it utterly impossible for Hezbollah to sustain another round of hostilities.
With Lebanese authorities unable to forcibly disarm Hezbollah, Israel appears determined to finish the job and ensure that Lebanon no longer serves as a launching pad for attacks against it.
Now that the nearly two-year Gaza war may be nearing an end under U.S. President Donald Trump's new peace plan, Israel is expected to shift its full attention to Lebanon, citing the slow pace of Hezbollah's disarmament as a justification.
In fact, Israel has never fully halted its attacks on Hezbollah since the Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement, reportedly killing an additional 300 people, including Hezbollah operatives and civilians.
Israel also refused to withdraw from five strategic positions it continues to occupy in southern Lebanon and has not released prisoners detained during the war. This has been central to Hezbollah's core argument for retaining its weapons.
"At some point, if Israel decides to expand its military operations against Hezbollah, it is highly unlikely that the U.S. would restrain its freedom of military action in Lebanon," David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group, told UPI.
Wood thus cast doubt on Hezbollah's insistence that its anti-Israel resistance remains "an integral part" of the group, dismissing the possibility that Hezbollah could return to what it was before September 2023 - "a sprawling, heavily armed, and highly visible organization."
It was not just due to the heavy losses it suffered, but also because of the obstacles it faces in rebuilding its military after its main supply route from Iran through Syria was cut off following the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024.
"It is much harder for Hezbollah to get weapons into the country and to reestablish its military positions," Wood explained, also citing the Lebanese government's "clear" decision to monopolize weapons within the country.
Worse still, the landscape in which Hezbollah once thrived has changed dramatically, forcing it to confront a convergence of regional and internal pressures that are reshaping its trajectory.
"Hezbollah has never faced an existential crisis of this magnitude in its 40 years of existence," Wood said, adding that it is not surprising if differences of opinion exist within the group "about the best way to respond."
Iran, too, finds itself in a very difficult position amid the current regional circumstances and the "spectacular failure" of its defense strategy and "Axis of Resistance," where its non-state proxies were meant to keep conflicts away from its own territory, he said.
This raises questions about whether Iran can or even wants to rearm Hezbollah, especially after its defense strategy -- which has cost billions of U.S. dollars -- "has not proved fit for its purpose," according to Wood.
Even using Hezbollah as "a serious negotiation chip" in Iran's talks with Washington has decreased "dramatically" due to the war with Israel and the evident collapse of the "mutual deterrence assumption," he said.
Moreover, Khashan argued that there is not much Iran can do for Hezbollah, knowing that Israel enjoys Washington's "unwavering" support and possesses military capabilities matched only by the United States.
"If Iran is not capable of defending itself, how can it claim that Hezbollah will continue to maintain the military capacity and hardware it needs for self-defense?" he asked rhetorically, adding that even if the group had an open military supply line, nothing it could field would match what Israel has.
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