Ansarollah Website. Analysis | Anas Al-Qadi
On October 8, 2023, a day after Al-Aqsa Flood, Hezbollah entered the front line in support of the Palestinian resistance. This was the first shot fired in support of Gaza, before the rest of the resistance axis joined in. For this moral and strategic stance, the party made many sacrifices, foremost among them the great martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, his companions from the party's first-tier leadership, and many cadres. Because the Lebanese resistance exists to liberate the land and achieve victory, it is rebuilding itself and confronting internal and external pressures with wisdom and principle. It will achieve victory, as it has always done.
Analysis of the Current Scene
On the second anniversary of "Al-Aqsa Flood," the regional landscape is witnessing a state of overlap between the relative calm on the ground in the Gaza Strip and the escalating tensions on the Lebanese front, as "Israel" attempts to transform the momentum of the war in southern Palestine into a strategic gain in the north by intensifying airstrikes and assassinations in Lebanon.
In its recent claims—which may be true and are indicative here—the Israeli army announced that it had targeted Hezbollah's "Radwan camps" in eastern Lebanon, under the pretext—though it had no pretext—that they were being used to train operatives to carry out operations against the entity. These operations fall within the context of what the occupying entity calls "eliminating imminent threats," but in essence, they represent an attempt to limit the effectiveness of the Lebanese resistance and prevent the party from rebuilding its leadership.
In contrast, Hezbollah has maintained a measured approach of deterrence since October 8, 2023, choosing to respond in a measured manner that takes into account the balance of deterrence established since the July 2006 war, without slipping into a comprehensive confrontation that could open the door to a widespread aggression. However, the repeated raids deep inside Lebanon and the targeting of field figures and senior leaders in the recent period have demonstrated that the enemy is trying to test the limits of this balance and break it. Currently, the Zionist attacks are meant to measure the party's ability to restore the deterrence equation and compensate for the sacrifices it has made.
The Internal Lebanese Context
On the domestic level, political pressure is mounting on Hezbollah from forces within the Lebanese government and from Western parties seeking to link economic and military aid to Lebanon to the "state-controlled" approach. Despite repeated official talk of disarming, this lacks national consensus and is unrealistic.
From a political perspective, these internal calls represent an indirect pressure tool enabling the West to reshape the Lebanese landscape to suit its security interests. It comes within the context of a broader plan aimed at dismantling the environment that supports the resistance through the economy, media, and politics, not just through military confrontation. Nevertheless, the party still maintains broad popular and political legitimacy, as it is viewed as the only national force capable of protecting the country from Zionist aggression, given the state's weakness and the limited capabilities of its army. This army is a national one, but it is shackled by politics and disarmed by ongoing American-Zionist-French policy.
The Regional and International Dimension
Regionally, developments in Lebanon are closely linked to the general trajectory of Trump's plan for the region, which the United States has re-proposed under the title "Peace for Development." This plan is, in essence, an attempt to reshape the map of influence in the Arab Levant by disarming the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon and establishing new security arrangements. However, it has been met with resistance and steadfastness.
This plan complements the European position calling for "ensuring Israel's security" and neutralizing "irregular" weapons in the region, meaning the weapons of the resistance. This makes pressure on Hezbollah a natural extension of the pressures imposed on the Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas.
On the international level, Washington and the occupying entity are trying to promote a narrative that the resistance has become a burden on Lebanese stability, to justify any future military aggression. In contrast, Hezbollah's position—as evident from its statements and those of its representatives—is based on an absolute refusal to disarm under such circumstances.
Position Analysis
Hezbollah's Position:
Hezbollah stands today at a critical juncture in its military and political history, facing intertwined pressures: on the ground, through Israeli raids on the South and Bekaa, and politically, through disarmament campaigns sponsored by Western-backed Lebanese parties. This all comes amidst the loss of its top leadership.
However, the party's ideological structure leads it to consider these pressures as a confirmation of the correctness of its approach, not a threat to its existence. For it, resistance is not a negotiable item, nor subject to interim settlements. Rather, it is a "national and moral identity," a way of life, and a project for its military presence as long as the occupation persists. It derives its political legitimacy from the history of repeated Israeli occupations and the inability of the international system to protect Lebanon and its sovereignty.
In this context, the party adopts a dual strategy based on operational restraint and an escalation of resistance and political rhetoric. It realizes that any open war does not serve it at the moment, given Gaza's preoccupation with the blockade and negotiations, the increasing pressure on Iran, and the collapse of the Syrian nationalist regime.
The party believes that calls for a "weapons restriction" are merely a political translation of an American-Israeli plan aimed at returning Lebanon to the position of a weak, neutral state that allows the enemy to strike whenever it wants. Therefore, the recent speech by its Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, took a more explicit approach, emphasizing that weapons will remain as long as Israel maintains its ability to launch aggression. He also emphasized that the resistance cannot be reduced to an internal equation, but rather is part of the regional deterrence balance that links Gaza, Beirut, Sana'a, and Tehran in a unified defense system.
Israel's Position: Between the Failure of Deterrence and the Impasse of Initiative
As for the Zionist entity, it faces a strategic dilemma unprecedented since the July 2006 war. The war in Gaza did not achieve its declared objectives, and the international community began to consider the entity's behavior as a moral and political burden, prompting it to attempt to transfer the conflict to the Lebanese front to create a symbolic balance after its failure in southern Palestine.
Targeting resistance camps and centers in Bekaa Valley—according to Israeli claims—is part of this effort to create an "image of security achievement" and prevent the party from rebuilding its capabilities. However, this policy entails significant risk: any miscalculation could prompt Hezbollah to launch a qualitative response, reminiscent of its precision missile capabilities capable of disrupting the occupied interior.
The occupying entity's military establishment realizes that any large-scale war against Lebanon would be economically and humanly catastrophic, but it relies on international and internal Lebanese pressure to undermine the party's ability to respond. Therefore, "Israel" focuses on limited strikes, psychological and media warfare, and employs its allies in Beirut to reproduce the rhetoric of "a state hijacked by the militia," the same rhetoric directed at the resistance in Gaza and the Ansarollah in Yemen.
However, this rhetoric has lost its momentum in the face of facts on the ground, which confirm that "Israeli deterrence" has been weak and that the resistance is no longer responding solely from a defensive perspective, but rather from a position of conscious regional action that connects the fronts.
The Official Lebanese Position Between Contradiction and Dependence
The official Lebanese position is plagued by a chronic duality between the rhetoric of national sovereignty and the reality of financial and political dependence on the West. The government, through statements by several ministers, reiterates its commitment to "the exclusive control of arms by the state," but in reality, it lacks the will or capacity to confront the almost daily Israeli violations or protect its southern border from aggression. In this context, focusing on Hezbollah's weapons becomes an escape from confronting the core of the crisis: the ongoing aggression and the unchecked air and political incursions perpetrated by "Israel".
Also, talk of "supporting the Lebanese Army" with conditional American aid can only be read within the framework of reforming the internal balance of power to diminish the role of the resistance and present the army as a symbolic alternative, incapable of truly confronting the situation.
The party is well aware of this equation and therefore engages with state institutions from a position of "protection, not challenge." In other words, it seeks to establish the logic of national partnership without allowing the state to become a platform for disarming itself. In this sense, Hezbollah is attempting to preserve the state without completely surrendering it to foreign tutelage, while some forces continue to use the language of "state" as a cover for foreign projects.
International and Regional Indicators:
At the international level, indicators show that the US administration continues to use funding and diplomatic pressure to besiege the resistance in Lebanon, in parallel with its unlimited support for the aggression against Gaza. The $230 million in military grants announced by Washington to the Lebanese Army are not innocent technical support, as promoted, but rather part of a plan to rebuild the internal balance so that the army becomes "the sole legitimate umbrella for arms," in Western terms. This limited support does not balance the force with the occupying entity.
This aligns with the demands of the Europeans, who are pushing in the Security Council to amend UNIFIL's mandate to include monitoring the implementation of Resolution 1701 in its Israeli version.
General Assessment
Current data indicate that the Lebanese resistance (Hezbollah) stands at a highly sensitive strategic crossroads on the second anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, balancing between maintaining the deterrence equation and avoiding being dragged into a full-scale war.
The recent Israeli airstrikes and the targeting of field commanders in Bekaa and the South have not altered the party's solid structure, but they have aimed to test the limits of its strategic patience and weaken its ability to take the initiative. Thus far, the party has responded within logicly of which maintains deterrence without giving the enemy the pretext to engage in a full-scale aggression.
Internally, the party is facing a soft war, composed of political, economic, and media tools, targeting its legitimacy and weapons under the banner of "reform and international support." Meanwhile, its popular base in the South and Bekaa maintains its cohesion as the de facto guarantee of protecting national sovereignty. This popular legitimacy represents a strategic asset in the face of Western and Lebanese pressures allied with the disarmament project.
Regionally, assessments confirm that the pressure on Hezbollah is not isolated, but rather comes within the context of a broader American project to reengineer the region under the umbrella of "peace for development," by weakening the factions of the axis of resistance. However, the party is confronting this plan with greater cohesion.
Ultimately, the Lebanese resistance today stands on a solid military footing, but it is surrounded politically. It possesses the tools of maneuver and deterrence that enable it to control the balance of the conflict without losing the initiative. It—the Lebanese resistance—has the capacity today to confront the enemy, but it is gaining more time to reorganize and rebuild. It believes that preserving the resistance's presence today is more important than responding to Zionist attacks within the limits that can be contained.
If the United States exerts pressure (political, financial, and diplomatic) on the Lebanese government to accelerate the process of “restricting arms to the state” and condition aid and investments on concrete measures against Hezbollah, and if this pressure coincides with a series of ongoing Israeli violations on the southern border (bombing, assassinations, specific air or ground attacks), and if internal mediation channels fail to reduce the political and social tension, there is a high probability that Hezbollah will choose to transform the internal pressure – which is pushing for war – into an external confrontation with the entity as a defensive and strategic line, with the aim of reshaping the balance of power and directing efforts against the real enemy.
#The_Zionist_enemy #The_American_British_aggression_against_Yemen
#US_is_the_mother_of_terrorism
#Al_Aqsa_flood
