Hizbollah's flexible chain of command, together with its extensive tunnel network and vast arsenal of missiles and weapons, is helping it weather unprecedented Israeli strikes, sources familiar with the Lebanese group's operations said.
Israel's assault over the past week, including the targeting of senior commanders and the detonation of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies, has left the powerful Lebanese Shia armed wing and political party reeling.
On Friday, Israel killed the commander who founded and led the group's elite Radwan force, Ibrahim Aqil.
Since Monday, Lebanon's Health Ministry says more than 560 people, among them 50 children, have died in air barrages.
But sources familiar with Hizbollah operations said the group swiftly appointed replacements for Aqil and other senior figures killed in Friday's airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an Aug 1 speech that the group filled gaps whenever a leader was killed.
A Hizbollah official said the attack on communication devices put 1,500 fighters out of commission because of their injuries.
While that is a major blow, it represents a fraction of Hizbollah's strength, which a United States Congress report put at 40,000 to 50,000 fighters. Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters.
Since October, when Hizbollah began firing at Israel in support of Hamas, it had redeployed fighters to frontline areas in the south, including some from Syria, sources said.
It has also been bringing rockets into Lebanon, anticipating a drawn-out conflict, sources said.
Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London, said that while Hizbollah operations had been disrupted in the past week, the group's networked organisational structure helped make it a resilient force.
While Israel killed another top Hizbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi, on Tuesday, Hizbollah has shown its capacity to continue operations, firing hundreds of rockets towards Israel in ever deeper attacks.
On Wednesday, Hizbollah targeted an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv, more than 100km from the border.
The group has yet to say whether it has launched its most potent, precision-guided rockets, such as the Fateh-110, an Iranian-made ballistic missile with a range of 250 to 300km.
The Fateh-110 has a 450-500kg warhead, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in 2018.
Hizbollah's rocket attacks are possible because the chain of command has kept functioning.
Sources said Hizbollah's ability to communicate is underpinned by a dedicated, fixed-line telephone network that continued to work, as well as by other devices.
Many of its fighters carried older models of pagers, for example, that were unaffected by last week's attack.
If the chain of command breaks, fighters are trained to operate in small, independent clusters near the border, capable of fighting Israeli forces for long periods, a senior source added.
That is what happened in 2006, during the last war between Hizbollah and Israel, when the group's fighters held out for weeks, some in frontline villages invaded by Israel.
The fighting has raised fears of a protracted war that could suck in the US, Israel's ally, and Iran — especially if Israel launches, and gets bogged down in, a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Hizbollah is believed to have an underground arsenal and last month published footage that appeared to show its fighters driving lorries with rocket launchers through tunnels.
Hizbollah's arsenal is believed to comprise some 150,000 rockets. Krieg said its most powerful, long-range ballistic missiles were kept below ground.
Confirmed details on the tunnel network remain scarce.
A 2021 report by Alma, an Israeli think tank, said Iran and North Korea helped build up the network of tunnels in the aftermath of the 2006 war.
The writers are from Reuters
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times