About 1,500 Hezbollah operatives have been taken out of service due to injuries following the beeper and communication device attack, Reuters reported today (Wednesday). According to them, many "were blinded or lost hands" as a result of the device explosions.
So, how is it still functioning and launching continuous rockets and missiles at Israel?
To maintain its operations, Hezbollah uses a flexible command chain and tunnels. These, along with the missile and weapons arsenal it has built up in the past year, help it survive the unprecedented Israeli bombings.
Hezbollah's tunnels were built with assistance from Iran and North Korea after the 2006 war. They were dug deep in mountain rock, making them less accessible and harder to destroy than those in Gaza. They extend for hundreds of kilometers according to Israeli estimates, and they are used for storing and launching missiles, as well as troop movement.
Hezbollah rushed to appoint replacements for eliminated senior officials like Ibrahim Aqil, as Hezbollah Secretary-General Nasrallah promised in a speech on August 1st that the ranks would quickly be filled if a commander in the terrorist organization was killed.
Hezbollah also claims that their dedicated fixed-line telephone network remains functional and that their older model pagers were unaffected by recent attacks.
So where to from here?
Hezbollah's resilience suggests a potentially drawn-out conflict. As an Israeli think tank researcher said, "I don't think we are anywhere near finishing this."
Israel faces similar challenges to those faced in Gaza, but they are potentially more complex due to Lebanon's terrain and Hezbollah's capabilities. It's doubtful that Israel wants another war of attrition, but given taht it has waited patiently for Hezbollah to lay down their weapons for eleven months, and given America's great efforts to get Hezbollah to move away from the Litani River, Israel feels it has no other choice but to cause Hezbollah enormous pain until it backs down– and if that fails, to launch a comperehesive ground op.