Hezbollah under Israel’s scalpel: The redrawing of Lebanon's power architecture - opinion

That point in time exposed an internal fragility concealed for years, thrusting the terror group into a new phase of security vulnerability and strategic exposure.

What followed Nasrallah’s assassination was not merely a series of disconnected operations but an organized pathway redrawing the architecture of power within Lebanon. This is the heart of the matter.

In fact, the recurring wave of assassinations and deep, surgical Israeli strikes came as a natural consequence of sustained security exposure. The assassination of Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s second-in-command and chief of staff, deepened this exposure and revealed that Israeli strikes no longer target security vacuums but instead aim at the operational core of the party’s apparatus.

The operation completely rewrote the rules of engagement and demonstrated a composite intelligence capability involving, according to intersecting reports, Israeli and American agencies simultaneously. This established a precedent confirming that the terror group now falls within the circle of direct international surveillance.

Herein lies the gravity of the scene. This type of penetration utterly demolishes the party’s narrative claiming it addressed security deficiencies covertly, and it confirms that the organizational environment has become exposed before multinational intelligence services.

Consequently, this places before the party a complex equation. It no longer faces a single enemy but confronts an integrated international security system that will compel it to pay an overdue price for its continuous terrorism spanning more than four decades.

Meanwhile, various indicators suggest that a number of elements from the Shia environment, even from within the terror group itself, participated in leaking sensitive intelligence in exchange for financial rewards or safe exit corridors to the United States and Europe. American entities, including the State Department and national security apparatus, have placed bounties reaching up to $15 million for anyone providing information leading to the disruption of Hezbollah networks or damage to its command centers.

No doubt, the party recognizes that any retreat before Israel would constitute a betrayal of the Iranian project that has pumped millions of dollars over decades to enable it to manage Lebanon’s security and political scene. Therefore, the terror group cannot retreat, even if continued engagement yields further human and military hemorrhaging. Retreat simply means the end of Iranian influence in Lebanon.

At a deeper level, this trajectory connects to the organic bond linking the party to the Iranian project. Hezbollah does not operate within Lebanese calculations but within a functional framework tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This ideological tether places the organization at a strategic impasse: It is governed by Tehran’s calculations, not Lebanon’s interests.

Further analyses indicate that Israel does not target the party within a framework of conventional deterrence but as part of a methodical dismantlement strategy aimed at striking leadership capacities, disabling sensitive centers, and weakening the organization’s ability to manage multilevel conflicts.

If assessments regarding the so-called Plan B circulating in certain research circles prove accurate, the coming phase may witness multiple operations targeting figures from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement to redraw the balance of power within the Shia arena. This scenario, should it occur, would radically alter the playbook in Lebanon.

As for the Lebanese state, it exists entirely outside the circle of action. It has no capacity to impose sovereignty, regulate security, or protect state institutions. This degree of state absence renders every operation targeting the party as part of an equation managed from outside. This returns us to the structural problem: Without dismantling the parallel armed authority, Lebanon cannot reclaim itself as a state.

Amid this Lebanese vacuum, new regional implications emerge in how Arab societies view the roles of regional actors. Coinciding with the declining ability of traditional regional capitals to control the scene, broad sectors of Arab public opinion have begun looking toward effective sources of power capable of restoring balance.

It has become clear that many Arabs now consider that Israel has become a principal player in building relative stability, particularly given its capacity to confront armed cross-border organizations, capabilities some regional states have failed to achieve. This is quite a pivot.

In truth, this shift is not merely political desire but an expression of a social aspiration toward stability after decades of exhaustion from open confrontations.

Lebanon’s future will remain hostage to this complex equation. No recovery or stability will be achieved as long as security decisions lie outside official institutions and as long as weapons stay in the hands of a sub-state actor.

In reality, Lebanon will not begin its reform before addressing the roots of Hezbollah’s armed power through either a grand settlement or long-term attrition. From here begin all coming crises, ones that will not end except through dismantling the deep state apparatus and parallel armament or through prolonged exhaustion consuming what remains of the actual state itself.