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 * Middle East
 * Israel and Hamas at War


HEZBOLLAH FORGES NEW COMMAND FOR CRUCIAL GROUND WAR AFTER HEAVY ISRAELI BLOWS

By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Alexander Cornwell
October 11, 20243:30 PM GMT+2Updated 15 hours ago
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Item 1 of 7 People inspect the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing
hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October
11, 2024. REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
[1/7]People inspect the site of an Israeli air strike, amid ongoing hostilities
between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024.
REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

 * Summary

 * Fighters in south getting orders from 'operations room'
 * Tunnels are 'foundation' of battle: Hezbollah field commander
 * Israeli analyst sees Hezbollah as 'prepared and waiting'

BEIRUT, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Hezbollah is preparing for a long war of attrition in
south Lebanon, after Israel wiped out its top leadership, with a new military
command directing rocket fire and the ground conflict, two sources familiar with
its operations said.
Hezbollah has been diminished by three weeks of devastating Israeli blows - most
notably the killing of its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Friends and foes
alike are now watching how effectively it resists Israeli troops that have
crossed into Lebanon with the stated aim of driving it away from the border.
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The Iran-backed group still has a considerable stockpile of weapons, including
its most powerful precision missiles which it has yet to use, four sources
familiar with its operations said, despite waves of airstrikes that Israel says
has severely depleted its arsenal.
Hezbollah's command was disrupted for the first few days after Nasrallah's Sept.
27 assassination until Shi'ite militants established a new "operations room" 72
hours later, the two sources - a Hezbollah field commander and a source close to
the group - told Reuters.
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Nasrallah was killed, along with other Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian
commander, when Israel located and bombed his deep bunker below Beirut.
The new command centre has kept functioning despite subsequent Israeli attacks,
meaning fighters in the south are able to fire rockets and fight according to
centrally issued orders, according to the sources, who asked not to be named in
order to discuss sensitive matters.

A third source, a senior official close to Hezbollah, said the group was now
waging a war of attrition.
Avraham Levine, an analyst with Israeli think-tank Alma, said it should be
assumed Hezbollah was "well prepared and waiting" for Israeli troops and that it
was no easy target.
"The fact that the chain of command has been damaged does not take away the
ability to shoot Israeli communities or try to hit" Israeli forces, Levine told
Reuters, describing Hezbollah as "the same powerful terror army we all know."

Fighters have the flexibility to carry out orders "according to the capabilities
of the front," the Hezbollah field commander said, described the new command as
"a narrow circle" in direct contact with the field. It is rare for a Hezbollah
field commander to speak to international media.
He said the new command operates in total secrecy and gave no further details
about its communications or structure. Hezbollah has not named a new leader
after Nasrallah, with the most likely successor also killed. The Shi'ite group's
deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said this week he supported ceasefire efforts,
but said the group's capabilities were intact.

Another source familiar with Hezbollah's operations said the group's dedicated,
fixed-line phone network was "essential" to current communications. Sources have
said the network survived attacks on the group's communications in September.
A statement this week signed by the "operations room of the Islamic Resistance"
said fighters were resisting incursions and "watching and listening" to Israeli
troops where they least expect it - an apparent reference to concealed Hezbollah
positions. The statement, the first public acknowledgment of the existence of a
new command, did not name its members or say when and in what context it was
established.
Hezbollah's media office did not respond to a request for comment ahead of
publication, which included a detailed summary of the information provided by
the field commander and other sources. After this story was published,
Hezbollah's media office said in a written statement that the part of Reuters'
story "attributed to a Hezbollah field commander is completely false" and that
there are "no sources in Hezbollah".
Asked about the situation in Lebanon, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) referred
Reuters to previous public statements.


TUNNEL WARFARE

Israel announced on Oct. 1 that ground forces had entered southern Lebanon,
initially with commando units, followed by regular armoured units and infantry
units. Reservists from the 146th Division are now on the ground, the military
said on Tuesday, bringing to four the number of divisions on Lebanese soil.
Israel has not said how many soldiers are on the ground, but an Israeli division
usually consists of more than 1,000 fighters.
The troops are fighting close quarters battles with Hezbollah units, Israel
says. Twelve Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon or north
Israel since the start of the operation, it says.
Hezbollah possesses an extensive tunnel network in southern Lebanon, both the
group and Israel say. The tunnels grew after the group's 2006 war with Israel,
according to a 2021 report by think-tank Alma. Israel estimates they extend for
hundreds of kilometres.
The Hezbollah field commander said the tunnels "are the foundation of the
battle". Hezbollah had toiled for years to build them, he added. "Their time has
come," he said.
Israel's military has released video footage it says shows deep tunnels captured
by its soldiers. One video released on Oct. 5 appears to show an underground
room equipped with fixed line telephones. Reuters could not verify the date or
location of the footage.
The source close to Hezbollah said the tunnels detected by Israel were built for
its Radwan special forces units to one day enter the Galilee region of northern
Israel. The source said Israel did not know the full extent of the tunnels.


DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's
College London, said Hezbollah's capabilities had been degraded but it was still
able to fire rockets with intensity onto Israel while keeping their ballistic
missiles as weapons of last resort.
Hezbollah says it has stepped up fire in recent days.
Prior to the latest conflict, the World Factbook of the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency said Hezbollah possessed upwards of 150,000 missiles and
rockets.
The two sources said Hezbollah had chosen not to use its most potent rockets -
including precision guided missiles - to keep something in reserve for a long
war and to avoid giving Israel a pretext to widen its strikes to Lebanese
infrastructure, such as Beirut airport, roads and bridges.
The third source said the group had not targeted Israel's cities, such as Tel
Aviv, with its most powerful weapons because such a move would give Israel a
reason to hit Lebanon even harder.
There is no doubt Israel has inflicted enormous damage on Hezbollah. In
September, thousands of booby-trapped communications devices used by Hezbollah
members were detonated - an attack for which Israel has neither confirmed nor
denied responsibility.
Beginning Sept. 23, Israel dramatically escalated airstrikes, claiming to have
destroyed tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets mostly in southern Lebanon, the
Bekaa Valley, and Beirut's southern suburbs.
Israeli officials have said that the fact that Hezbollah has been firing 100-200
missiles and rockets a day on average and not the thousands expected, shows
significant weakening.
Estimates have varied about the scale of Hezbollah's losses, with one Western
diplomat saying prior to Nasrallah's killing that up to 25% of the missile
capacity had been lost. Reuters has previously reported that Iran had offered to
restock its ally, but faced challenges in supply routes.
The Israeli military says it has killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters,
including most of the senior command of the Radwan special forces.
The United States, which deems Hezbollah a terrorist group, said deputy leader
Qassem's call on Tuesday for a ceasefire showed it was on the back foot.


GUERRILLA TACTICS

In one deadly engagement last week, concealed Hezbollah fighters attacked
Israeli troops as they advanced in the area of Odaisseh, a village in the south,
just after Israel had pounded it with artillery and airstrikes, the source close
to Hezbollah said.
The Hezbollah fighters used mines and Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles in
their ambush - the types of weapons used against Israeli forces in a war in
southern Lebanon in 2006.
The source appeared to be referring to an incident in which the Israeli military
said five soldiers from a commando unit were killed and five others severely
wounded in a gunbattle on Oct. 2.
The Israeli military declined to give details beyond its already published
statements. That same day, two other soldiers were killed in a separate incident
announced by the Israeli army.
Israel says it aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of people who
evacuated northern Israel after Hezbollah began firing rockets a year ago in
solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Lebanese authorities say Israel's offensive has uprooted more than 1 million
people in Lebanon - predominantly members of the Shi'ite community from which
Hezbollah draws support.
Mohanad Hage Ali of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center said he
expected Israeli forces to advance. "The question is how costly will Hezbollah
make it for them?"
The south is steeped in symbolism for Hezbollah. The group was founded by Iran's
Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s, in part to fight an Israeli invasion.
It subsequently battled Israel's years-long occupation.
"Fighting Israel on the ground is Hezbollah's bread and butter," said Krieg.
"This is what they have trained to do and most of their defences on the ground
were designed" for, he said.
He said Hezbollah wants to send a clear message to Israel, but also to its
constituents in Lebanon and allies in the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance that it
is still intact and "can inflict considerable harm" on Israel's forces, he said.

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Additional reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut and James MacKenzie in Jerusalem;
Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

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