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“The guiding principle today is, the situation we were in before Oct. 6, [2023], where Hezbollah could erect a tent on the border and we would think about it, is no more,” said the official.
In addition to retaining for the foreseeable future five positions in Lebanese territory following its withdrawal from Southern Lebanon as part of the Nov. 27, 2024 ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel has been working steadily to enforce the truce.
In the final months of the war in the north, the IDF destroyed an enormous number of Hezbollah facilities and weapons, targeted its senior and intermediate command levels and killed more than 4,000 Hezbollah terror operatives.
Israel also attacked Hezbollah’s financial system and strongholds across Lebanon.
The Shi’ite terror organization has been struggling to recover ever since.
Lebanon has taken steps to prevent Iranian funds from being smuggled into the country to Hezbollah, while the IDF has been demonstrating its ability and willingness to turn actionable intelligence into
strikes.
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the Israeli Air Force eliminated Mahran Ali Nasser al-Din, a significant member of Hezbollah’s Unit 4400.
The IDF described Unit 4400 as “responsible for smuggling weapons into Lebanese territory from Iran and its proxies, aiming to maximize Hezbollah’s weapons stockpiles. Since its establishment, Unit 4400 has established numerous smuggling routes along the Syria-Lebanon border.”
Al-Din played a major role in these operations. “This activity, which facilitates Hezbollah’s armament, constitutes a clear threat to the security of the State of Israel and violates the understandings reached between Israel and Lebanon,” the IDF said.
The next day, on Feb. 27, the IDF announced that it had identified activity inside a Hezbollah observation post in the area of Aainata in southern Lebanon, in violation of the ceasefire, which requires that Hezbollah withdraw north of the Litani River. The IAF proceeded to strike the post.
That same day, the IAF eliminated Hezbollah terrorist Mohammed Mahdi Ali Shaheen near Hermel. Shaheen had been coordinating terrorist transactions for the purchase of weapons on the Syria-Lebanon border since the understandings between Lebanon and Israel came into effect,” according to the IDF.
Shaheen was part of Hezbollah’s Geographical Unit, which according to the Israeli military is responsible for the Beqaa area and had recently been involved in transporting weapons from Syria to Lebanon. His actions posed a serious threat, according to the IDF.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former Israeli national security adviser and ex-head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Research Department, described the changes to the situation in the north as “historic.”
“The situation in the north is totally different than when it was in the beginning of the war,” he said on Sunday during a call with reporters organized by the Jerusalem Press Club. For such dramatic changes to occur in so short a time is “very rare,” he added.
Following the collapse of the Assad regime in December, he continued, Hezbollah’s strategic position has fundamentally changed. For the first time in its history it now finds itself without a land bridge from Iran via Syria to Lebanon, he said.
According to Col. (res.) Barak Ben-Zur, a former IDF Military Intelligence officer and ex-head of a research unit at the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the collapse of the Syrian regime was a massive blow to Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran.
“The Assad family regime made a strategic decision, since the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace agreement, to seek another regional pillar to replace Egypt—this was Iran,” he told JNS on Monday.
That Iran “did not deliver” is the most important takeaway from the situation, according to Amidror.
Ben-Zur explained how since the 1980s Iran had established a regional array, building up Hezbollah and entrenching itself in Syria. That effort included bases, “tactical forces, intelligence-gathering capabilities on Israel and a command-and-control system,” he said.
“All of this ended with the rise of the Sunni government and the expulsion of Assad and his supporters” from Syria, he added.
“This has created a strategic opportunity that alters reality and allows Israel to deepen Hezbollah’s isolation after a series of operations weakened its capabilities,” he continued.
He warned, however, that Israel has not yet developed a fully coordinated strategic policy to reach this goal. “The Israeli defense establishment must dedicate a staff study to this issue, as strategic opportunities are time-sensitive and can close after a period,” he told JNS.
“Alongside such a maneuver, preventing a renewal of the Iranian front within Syria is no less important a goal, and perhaps, more so,” he said. “At this stage, it is difficult to point to Israeli focus on this issue, and the building of a strategic plan designed to fulfill these objectives.”
