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“This is a massive blow and intelligence failure for Hezbollah,” Magnus Ranstorp, a veteran Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University. “They knew that he was meeting. He was meeting with other commanders. And they just went for him.” Including Nasrallah, the Zionist entity’s military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week. These commanders led units ranging from the rocket division to the elite Radwan force. Around 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were maimed by the exploding pagers and walkie talkies on Sept 17 and Sept 18.

On Saturday, the Zionist entity’s military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters in a briefing that the military had “real-time” knowledge that Nasrallah and other leaders were gathering. Shoshani did not say how they knew, but said the leaders were meeting to plan attacks on the Zionist entity. Brigadier General Amichai Levin, commander of Hatzerim Airbase, told reporters that dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds. “The operation was complex and was planned for a long time,” according to Levin.

Hezbollah has shown the ability to replace commanders quickly, and Nasrallah’s cousin Hashem Safieddine, also a cleric, has long been tipped as his successor. “You kill one, they get a new one,” said a European diplomat of the group’s approach. The group, whose name means Party of God, will fight on: by US and Zionist estimates it had some 40,000 fighters ahead of the current escalation, along with large weapons stockpiles and an extensive tunnel network near the Zionist entity’s border.

Founded in Tehran in 1982, the paramilitary outfit is the most formidable member of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance of anti-Zionist allied irregular forces, and a significant regional player in its own right. But it has been materially and psychologically weakened over the past 10 days. Thanks to decades of backing from Iran, prior to the current conflict Hezbollah was among the world’s most well-armed non-conventional armies, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones, according to US estimates.

That is ten times the size of the armory the group had in 2006, during its last war with the Zionist entity, according to Zionist estimates. Over the past year, even more weapons have flowed into Lebanon from Iran, along with significant amounts of financial aid, a source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said. There have been few detailed public assessments of how much this arsenal has been damaged by the Zionist entity’s offensive over the past week, which has hit Hezbollah strongholds in Bekaa Valley, far from Lebanon’s border with the Zionist entity.

One Western diplomat in the Middle East told Reuters prior to Friday’s attack that Hezbollah had lost 20-25 percent of its missile capacity in the ongoing conflict, including in hundreds of Zionist strikes this week. A Zionist security official said “a very respectable portion” of Hezbollah’s missile stocks had been destroyed, without giving further specifics. In recent days, the Zionist entity has struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets. The security official, when asked about the military’s extensive target lists, said the Zionist entity had matched Hezbollah’s two-decade build up with preparations to prevent it launching its rockets in the first place - a complement to the Iron Dome air defense system that often downs missiles fired at the Zionist entity. Zionist officials say the fact that Hezbollah has only been able to launch a couple of hundred missiles a day in the past week was evidence its capabilities had been diminished.

Before the strike on Nasrallah, three Iranian sources told Reuters Iran was planning to send additional missiles to Hezbollah to prepare for a prolonged war. The weapons that were to be provided included short-to-medium-range ballistic missiles including Iranian Zelzals and an upgraded precision version known as the Fateh 110, the first Iranian source said. While Iran is willing to provide military support, the two Iranian sources said it does not want to be directly involved in a confrontation between Hezbollah and the Zionist entity. The rapid escalation in hostilities over the past week follows a year of skirmishes tied to the Gaza war.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in the Zionist strikes on Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing a state TV report. Hezbollah may need certain warheads and missiles along with drones and missile parts to replenish those destroyed by Zionist strikes across Lebanon last week, a senior Syrian military intelligence source added.

Iranian supplies have in the past reached Hezbollah by air and sea. On Saturday, Lebanon’s transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft not to enter its airspace after the Zionist entity warned air traffic control at Beirut airport that it would use “force” if the plane landed, a source at the ministry told Reuters. The source said it was not clear what was on the plane.

Land corridors are currently the best route for missiles, parts and drones, through Iraq and Syria, with the help of allied armed groups in those countries, an Iranian security official told Reuters this week. The Syrian military source, however, said Zionist drone surveillance and strikes targeting convoys of trucks had compromised that route. This year, the Zionist entity stepped up attacks on weapons depots and supply routes in Syria to weaken Hezbollah ahead of any war, Reuters reported in June. As recently as August, a Zionist drone hit weapons concealed in commercial trailers in Syria, the source said. This week, the Zionist entity’s military said its warplanes bombed unspecified infrastructure used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah at the Syria-Lebanon border. Joseph Votel, a former army general who led US forces in the Middle East, said the Zionist entity and its allies could well intercept any missiles Iran sent by land to Hezbollah now. — Reuters

“That might be a risk they’re willing to take, frankly,” he said. – Reuters