Updated on September 26,2024 at 5:45 p.m*
-Analysis-
BEIRUT — The double strike last week on Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies was a blatant war crime. Triggering thousands of bombs among civilians is akin to planting an entire country with random landmines that do not distinguish between an armed or unarmed partisan, between a partisan and a civilian, or between someone on the frontlines and someone far from it.
These are the blind strikes of a state targeting an entire people that Israel sees as “terrorist” to its core, giving it the right to brutalize its members at will, simply because its enemy is a product of this population, which Israel ultimately believes is deserving of genocide.
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On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz rejected the proposals for a ceasefire, after the U.S., France and other allies called for an immediate 21-day truce. And after a night of continued airstrikes which killed at least 72 across Lebanon (bringing the death toll to more than 620 in three days), Israel’s military targeted Beirut, reportedly killing the head of one of Hezbollah’s air units. Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke at the UN Security Council, urging member countries to call “for the cessation of this aggression.”
This is Israel as we know it right now, and alongside it, the supposedly “moral” West. If Hezbollah had planned and executed such an operation, planting thousands of wireless transmitters on the waists of Israeli soldiers and then detonating them wherever they were, unleashing a hellish wave of horrifying scenes, blood, moans, screams, and collective terror across Israel — as happened in Lebanon — there would be no hesitation from the West in declaring September 17 a “second October 7.” And no one would object to Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals turning the south of Lebanon, the suburbs of Beirut, and the Beqaa into a “new Gaza.”
Be sure that Hezbollah will not surrender and lay down its arms. Israel, likewise, will not break its resolve. Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah has always offered promises of victory in all his wars — whether against Israel or political opponents inside Lebanon. He promised dignity and pride, and in return, his community of followers promised sacrifice, with lives and children.
He built an image for his Lebanese followers of a mighty military faction, one that would never return to its previous state of deprivation, an organization that amazed the world with its discipline, strength, progress and the intelligence and savvy of its leaders.
This pride often manifests as arrogance, expressed in the same language by the eloquent party member of Parliament, as well as the rough teenager on a motorcycle. It’s a pride the faction has built with its party over decades, during which it emerged from its internal wars, or those in Syria or with Israel, having fulfilled its promise to its followers.
Admiring from afar
Through decades of organized propaganda, of which the community was both the first and last recipient, Hezbollah was able to dissolve the entire community into the image it crafted, and even its opponents conceded to this image. An image of a mythical faction living in its wars, all thinking strategically — where any dissenter is seen as self-hating, a traitor, or a mercenary.
This “war of support” for the people of Gaza is proving to be exhausting and costly.
The deeply rooted “love” between the community and its son, in a country where the factions live in a disguised confederation, allowed a single armed party to decide to open a support front, where that faction alone bears the tangible consequences of displacement, destruction, and youth killed by Israel from day one. Meanwhile, the other factions are not concerned as long as this war has not reached their cantons.
Admiring this sacrificial faction from afar is fine. Opening “our hearts before our homes to them” on TV is fine. Even donating blood is fine. But nearly a year into the war in Gaza, the wider community, along with its families and fighting sons, are paying the price for a war whose precise cause, purpose, or achieved goals remain unclear.
War aims
This “war of support” for the people of Gaza is proving to be exhausting and costly. Hezbollah must have enough moral courage to answer its community, both its fighters and supporting civilians, along with their families: Who, after Israel, bears responsibility for this grave breach of its apparatus that amounts to a crushing defeat for an organization known for its professionalism, strict hierarchy, intelligence capabilities, structural strength, leadership shrewdness, and the loyalty of its sons?
He must answer the thousands of wounded about the failure that led to paying Israel in dollars for this enormous number of bombs against individuals, allowing Israel to smuggle them into Lebanon, distribute them among its members, and then letting the enemy repeat the same massacre less than 24 hours after the first.
Despite the security halo surrounding it, Hezbollah must be transparent with its community — it owes them that — about the breach Israel used to achieve what it did. We must know who in its organizational body is responsible for this unprecedented failure on all levels, particularly and ultimately in protecting its community from the Israeli enemy.
What led it into this trap? Arrogance, overconfidence, complacency, or corruption? These have all become rampant within its ranks. It insists that its problems are internal matters, as long as it is used to indulging and sacrificing for the party, even when it slips and drags them into a deadly trap. There’s no excuse for its criminal enemy setting the trap, and no excuse for it falling into it so easily.
*Originally published September 25,2025, this article was updated September 26,2024 with additional information regarding the number of Lebanese casualties from recent Israeli airstrikes and the status of ceasefire negotiations.
