Hezbollah’s return is Israel’s largest defeat to Iran and its Arab allies

What two surprises surprised the Israeli army during the forty-day war?

The well-known historical principle states that there are no wars without casualties on both sides, defeated and victorious. If we apply this principle to the current war, which began with the American-Israeli aggression against Iran on February 28 of last year, the strong return of Hezbollah after nearly 16 months of strategic silence, as well as the reopening of the Lebanese front in all aspects, is the most significant achievement of this war and the greatest battlefield defeat for the Israeli occupation state. This represents a fact that many, whether within the Israeli enemy’s ranks or among its friends in or outside Lebanon, have ignored.

To elaborate, we say that Hezbollah’s withdrawal from military confrontation for more than 16 months, its acceptance of all criticisms directed at it, and its new leadership being labelled as “cowardly” and “collapsing”—even to the point of being seen as ending its existence as a military force— was a carefully planned political and military strategy. This manoeuvre was part of a long-term strategy that is now beginning to bear fruit, as evidenced by the rising human, material, and moral losses in the Israeli army’s ranks. The most shocking surprise unleashed by Hezbollah’s “secret” military brains, which has begun to reflect “terror” among the ranks of the Israeli army and its leadership, is the launch of hundreds of kamikaze “suicidal” ghost drones piloted by fibre optics. These drones are inexpensive to build, difficult to detect, and have explosive warheads weighing 50 to 1,000 kg.

Israeli army generals admitted that these stealth drones, which now rely on readily available and inexpensive local technology for production and are thus outfitted with highly advanced control devices, have become a terrifying nightmare for both the Israeli military and political institutions.

Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly admitted that the Israeli army is now facing two serious threats in Lebanon: kamikaze stealth drones and Hezbollah’s locally and independently manufactured 122mm rockets, as well as the party’s cadres’ strong courage, boldness, and will, both in leadership and execution on the ground and in the air.

Hezbollah militants’ recent engagements in southern Lebanon, particularly in Quneitra, exposed the Israeli military establishment’s inability to adequately prepare for surprises by employing modern drones alongside precision-guided missiles. These engagements resulted in heavy casualties for Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, including the capture and destruction of numerous Merkava tanks, as well as the surprise shelling of Israeli army formations and units, which injured and killed many of their personnel.

Lebanon is now experiencing a phase of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon following the 1982 invasion, but with a more prepared, stronger military leadership that received education and training in military academies in allied countries such as North Korea, China, and Russia.

If these field fingerprints surprised Israeli military generals, they certainly revealed the extent of the Lebanese military and political leadership’s naivety and backwardness, which was reflected in their adoption of Israeli and American dictates to disarm “Hezbollah” by force and proceed with the process of surrender and normalisation with the Israeli occupation state. Just as the Israeli-American duo failed to occupy Iran, change its regime, and destroy its nuclear and missile programmes for good, they made a bigger mistake by believing they could achieve the same result in Lebanon at a lower cost and with fewer losses, especially given the existence of a segment of the Lebanese people who deviated from the national line and became willing to change the Lebanese national doctrine and submit to and rely on the Israeli enemy.

The resistance fighters who liberated the Israeli security belt, fought the occupying Israeli army and its accomplices, and forced them to depart on a moonlit night in 2000, accepting their failure and minimising their losses, will repeat the victory without negotiations or agreements. They will free southern Lebanon for the second time as the first step toward establishing a new, peaceful, and united national Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s return is Israel’s largest defeat to Iran and its Arab allies