Analysis: We did not achieve a complete victory – but Hezbollah lost completely.
A few dozen hours ago, a ceasefire came into effect between Israel and Lebanon and Hezbollah. Many see this deal as a disappointment or proof that Israel "didn't learn from October 7." It's okay to be frustrated, it's okay to feel a sense of loss, but we need to face reality and say it clearly: even if we didn't achieve a complete victory, Hezbollah suffered a complete defeat on every level.
The ceasefire agreement that came into effect a few dozen hours ago finds the State of Israel and its citizens at a sensitive and difficult-to-balance point. On one hand, over the past few months, Israel has struck Hezbollah hard, and on the other hand, the organization still exists, and there are scents in the air that might remind one of the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, but the reality now is completely different.
It is true that the current ceasefire agreement is partly based on UN Resolution 1701 from the days of the Second Lebanon War, but the situation now is completely different. It's true that Nasrallah said, "If I had known how the Israelis would react, I wouldn't have started the war," but we must not judge our successes based on our enemies' reactions. It's true that the 2006 war was difficult for Hezbollah, but from Israel's perspective, it wasn't a victory, perhaps even the opposite.
In 2006, the IDF entered Lebanon unprepared, untrained, and in an unplanned manner; the casualties were numerous, the damage was massive, and the operational capabilities against Hezbollah were at a low level. Similar to Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the IDF played a game of "tag, you're it" in Lebanon, maneuvering on the periphery and not advancing forward.
The current war was completely different; it is clear that the IDF arrived in Lebanon prepared, with organized operational plans and actions that had been planned for years (some even decades), and this time it worked. There are people who don't want to say it too openly, so here it is: Israel has defeated Hezbollah. It's true that the organization still exists, but it is a shadow of what it once was, a skeleton without muscles that Israel has pushed deep into the mud.
Hezbollah made a grave mistake when it fired the first rocket on that October 8th, as Israel was much more deterred by Hezbollah than vice versa. Generals, officials, and journalists alike told us day after day how a war with Hezbollah would be a national disaster, that tens of thousands of missiles would be launched in the first minutes, that buildings would collapse, and that we would be stuck for days without electricity, calling it a "blackout scenario."
Imagine if Hezbollah had been sitting quietly on the northern border after the 7th, sitting and threatening. The best chance is that our military and political leaders would have restrained us themselves, fearing that Hezbollah would also enter the circle of fire. However, Hezbollah, which did not initially fully engage in the conflict, thought it could gain points in the Islamic world by launching eclectic attacks towards Israel.
Today, a year and two months after the October attack, although we did not achieve a "decisive victory" in Lebanon, the reality is indeed completely different. From an organization whose mere name instilled fear and concern among Israelis (especially decision-makers), Hezbollah has become a punchline. It's true, there were casualties and damages, but at the end of the day, Hezbollah did not manage to challenge Israel strategically, and barely succeeded in doing so on a tactical level.
The beeper attack dismantled the communication networks that had been built over the years under the radar. The firepower used against Beirut and Hezbollah strongholds shook Lebanon to its core and destroyed most of Hezbollah's capabilities, especially those marked as a "strategic threat." Its senior leadership was eliminated, with a special emphasis on Hassan Nasrallah, who, after Khamenei, was probably the most important figure in the Iranian axis.
But the most important thing Hezbollah did was break the barrier of fear among Israelis. In the past, when decision-makers sat down to consider an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities or on Iran in general, their hands trembled at the thought of sentencing the residents of the north to death. But now? Hezbollah is beaten, battered, weaker and more fragile than ever, the worst it can do is escalate the situation into a few days of fighting, which it will also lose. And the road to Tehran? It is already paved.