Israel is winning the intelligence war with Hezbollah. Will it matter?

Israel has used electronic surveillance (drones, security cameras and remote sensing systems), hacked into mobile phones and computers, and recruited Lebanese citizens as spies (the country's dire economy has helped).

So effective has it been that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah had to warn supporters to secure or lock their phones.

A spy's playground

Lebanon has been a treasure of information for Israel for decades before the its economic collapse, as it is almost completely unable to defend itself from Israeli penetration.

Furthermore, domestic sectarian groups, who make up Lebanese society, are politically divided. They disagree on most things, including politics, the country's identity, friends, and foes.

This has allowed Israel to create a vast network of informants that has been incredibly useful for its intelligence operations.

The US-equipped Lebanese Internal Security Forces' Information Division, considered a more capable unit than the rest of the country's intelligence apparatus, has arrested more than 20 individuals accused of working for Israel, including members of Hezbollah.

The Shiite militia has not been helpless in the face of frequent Israeli incursions. It has adjusted to better protect itself, using low-tech countermeasures to reduce or nullify the effects of high-tech Israeli capabilities.

Like Israel, it also has gone on the offensive by launching aerial surveillance assets of its own into Israeli skies and by attacking sensitive sites in Israel, seeking to restore its deterrent.

Israel, by contrast, says that it has killed half of Hezbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon in recent weeks and months. Hezbollah has denied that claim.

Showing resilience

In reality, Israel's policy of targeted killings is unlikely to be key in strategically weakening Hezbollah. The group can survive almost any loss, with the possible exception of Nasrallah.

History proves it. Few thought the group would be as effective after Israel killed Abbas al-Musawi in 1992 and Imad Mughniyeh in 2008. Both were very senior.

The former was Nasrallah's predecessor, deeply loved by members and trusted by Iran. The latter was Hezbollah's top operative and military commander, and one of Nasrallah's closest friends.

A shadowy figure, he was on Israeli and US most-wanted lists for decades for his involvement in several deadly attacks against American, Israeli and Jewish targets in Lebanon and abroad.

On 16 February 1992, two Israeli Apache helicopters struck Musawi along with his wife and six-year-old son while they were returning to Beirut from a rally in Jibshit, a Lebanese village in the south.

Israel had hoped that his elimination would cripple both Hezbollah and the threat it posed to Israeli interests, but it did the opposite.

Nasrallah succeeded Musawi and turned Hezbollah into the world's most powerful sub-state actor (and himself into one of the Middle East's more influential power brokers).

Hezbollah responded, too. A month after Musawi's assassination, and with the help of Iran, it blew up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people and shattering any doubts about its capabilities.

Well-oiled machine

While Hezbollah has yet to replace Mughniyeh, who was killed in a joint CIA-Mossad operation in Damascus on 12 February 2008, Hezbollah has not lost a beat militarily, as evidenced by its attacks against Israel in recent months.

More than 16 years have passed since Mughniyeh was killed, and yet Hezbollah—whose military power Mughniyeh oversaw and developed—continues to grow in size and capability.

Hezbollah has survived Musawi and Mughniyeh (and many other important members, though of lower rank) because it is organisationally coherent, unlike groups like Hamas.

It has a perfect blend of bureaucratic hierarchy and military flexibility. Nasrallah calls the shots but fighters have the autonomy to execute their operational tasks.

Hezbollah is a well-oiled machine glued together not by politics or desire for power, but by ideology, religion, brotherhood, a sense of mission, and a deep affinity for Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It also has control over the geography and population of southern Lebanon, and enjoys generous and continuous support from Tehran.  

These qualities obviously do not make Hezbollah immune to danger or volatility, but they do make it more resilient than most other sub-state organisations.

A thousand cuts

In recent days and weeks, Israel has killed Maysam Al Attar, Abbas Qasem, Abbas Raad, Wissam al-Tawil, Taleb Abdallah and Mohammed Nasser, while Israel's Mossad agency is suspected of killing money exchanger Mohamad Srour in April.

He was sanctioned by Washington in 2019 for his alleged affiliation with Hezbollah and financial assistance to Hamas.

Al Attar, an expert engineer in Hezbollah's air defence unit, was struck by an Israeli drone in Baalbek while driving his car, while Raad was the son of a senior Hezbollah lawmaker and a member of the group's elite Radwan forces.

Qassem was a senior official in charge of a district in the south, while Tawil, Abdallah, and Nasser commanded operations in southern Lebanon.

Killing these Hezbollah commanders is not irrelevant. It degrades the group's capabilities, even if only temporarily, and boosts Israeli morale. Still, Israel will know that they carry little (if any) strategic value.

Throughout, Hezbollah has said it does not want a full war with Israel. Would things change with a top-three hit? If Israel were to kill Nasrallah, his deputy Naim Qasem, or his director of the executive council Hashem Safieddine, all bets are off.