How the IDF Fooled Nasrallah and Kept Hezbollah Guessing

Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, thought he understood the Israelis. He thought he knew what the IDF would do if he entered the war on the side of Hamas. He was wrong — dead wrong — and that mistake cost him his life. And during the past year of war, the IDF’s Operations Directorate has deployed a complicated series of deceptions that have kept Hezbollah bewildered as to the IDF’s next move. More on how the IDF did it can be found here: “Nasrallah made assumptions about Israel – and it cost him his life – analysis,” by Amir Bohbot, Jerusalem Post, October 19, 2024:

It happened right after the signing of the ceasefire agreement with Israel at the end of the Second Lebanon War (2006). Hassan Nasrallah, the then secretary-general of Hezbollah, delivered an unforgettable interview to the Lebanese news network New TV. Sitting comfortably in his bunker beneath the streets of Beirut’s Dahiyeh, Nasrallah admitted that he and the Jihad Council – Hezbollah’s supreme body – had made a serious miscalculation.

“We did not estimate, even by one percent, that the kidnapping of IDF soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) would lead to a war of this magnitude with Israel,” Nasrallah confessed, adding, “Had we known that the kidnapping operation would lead to such a result, we would not have undertaken it at all.”

Despite this blunder, Nasrallah managed to maintain his reputation for 18 years as the Middle East’s foremost expert on Israeli society – until recent months when the tables turned. Nasrallah, along with most members of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, were killed by IAF bombs. They are no longer around to grasp, for a second time, the scale of their error.

Following October 7, Nasrallah made another poor decision – one that, two weeks ago, became clear as his last major mistake. He tied Hezbollah’s fate to Hamas in Gaza and launched a war.

This move speaks volumes about the mentality on the Israeli side as well. Over the past two decades, both Israel’s political leadership and the IDF general staff hesitated to confront the Shi’ite terrorist group, often choosing to delay war or strong retaliation to attacks, even at the cost of allowing Hezbollah’s disproportionate growth and a decline in deterrence.

But more than anything, Nasrallah’s final, fatal misstep reveals a fascinating strategic deception that had been in the works for months, led by the IDF’s operations directorate. This deception ultimately led to Israel’s official declaration: the Nasrallah era is over.

Nasrallah’s assumption was straightforward: he believed Israel would not expand the war against Hezbollah or launch a ground invasion in Lebanon as long as Hamas held 101 hostages and troops were still in the enclave.

It appears that Nasrallah believed he could detect clear signs of a change in Israel’s policy toward Hezbollah. He believed he could detect early indicators of a ground invasion, such as preparations along the border and movements of Lebanese civilians. But the IDF, understanding his thought process, deliberately changed the sequence of actions to confuse him – a move that paid off.

In recent months, Nasrallah seemed unfazed by the reduced fighting in Gaza and unconvinced by the government’s threats and warnings from military officials to stop firing on the North. What sealed his fate was his speech about a “war of attrition” against Israel….

September 27: In a targeted killing that shook the Middle East, Israel killed Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah leaders.

Despite these heavy blows – perhaps because of them – Hezbollah did not remain idle. In response, it expanded its rocket range and drone operations to the Haifa area and, after a period of adjustment, began focusing on central Israel. Simultaneously, the impact of the strikes was undeniable: a pivotal moment in the war compelled Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to refine their arms smuggling routes to Beirut.

According to Israeli estimates, Hezbollah now has only a fraction of its 122 mm rockets capable of reaching Haifa and only a similar percentage of rockets that can reach Tel Aviv. It is believed that Hezbollah now holds less than a third of its stockpile of precision missiles and long-range rockets, which cover the entirety of Israel.

That means that of the 150,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah was known to have stockpiled before the war, 100,000 of them have been destroyed. And the airstrikes on the remaining weapons are continuing round the clock.

So far, the IDF’s war against Hezbollah has been a massive success. Nasrallah did not believe that the IDF would strike Beirut, for he assumed the Israelis would be held back by the Americans and Europeans. He moved missiles and command centers and combatants from the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon to Beirut, but it turned out that by concentrating more of the group’s men and weapons in one place, he only made it easier for the Israelis to destroy them. The Israelis have not only killed Nasrallah, but 10 of the 12 members of its Jihad Council. They managed to kill 39, and severely wound several thousand, of Hezbollah members with their “exploding pagers” and, a day later, their “exploding walkie-talkies.” IDF tanks and warplanes continue to target and destroy weapons depots, launch sites for missiles, rockets, and drones, while interdicting the smuggling of Iranian weapons through Syria into Lebanon. Hezbollah’s storehouse of rockets and missiles has been reduced from a prewar estimate of 150,000 to 50,000 today, with more being destroyed by airstrikes every day.

Hezbollah is reeling, but it still manages to launch, though in ever-diminishing numbers, rockets and drones into northern Israel, thereby preventing 60,000 Israelis from returning to their homes in the north. The IDF will not end its attacks to degrade Hezbollah’s power until those rockets and drones come to a halt, and those Israelis can safely return to their homes. How much more punishment can Hezbollah endure before it realizes there is no end to the IDF’s devious, brilliant, devastating campaign?