October 02, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
• In just two days, Hezbollah began to regain the image of the organisation it was before the devastating blows it suffered over ten intense days. The statement by the party’s Deputy Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, laid the foundation for the recovery process. His address was marked by a balance of realism, transparency, clarity, and a parallel sense of determination, resolve, vision, and reassurance.
• Hezbollah had endured a series of crushing blows that seemed enough to knock it out. The loss of its Secretary-General dealt a heavy blow – a leader beloved by millions of supporters worldwide, who was both an inspiration and the strategic mind behind the party’s plans and policies. In addition, most of its military, security, and field leadership were targeted, preceded by technical disruptions in communication networks that crippled thousands within Hezbollah’s infrastructure and its immediate environment. This was followed by relentless bombardment targeting villages in southern Lebanon, neighbourhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and towns and cities in the Bekaa Valley, resulting in hundreds of martyrs, thousands of wounded, and the displacement of one million people. With an estimated 20,000 casualties between martyrs and wounded within days, Hezbollah’s support base, roughly one million strong, suffered losses of 2% – a percentage equivalent, in World War II terms, to Japan losing 1.3 million people out of a population of its 65 million. This is five times the death toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which killed a quarter-million people and led to Japan’s surrender. If compared to the U.S. population of 350 million, it would equal a loss of 7 million.
• Despite the severity of this blow, Hezbollah managed to rise within days. Sheikh Naim Qassem’s address was followed by a display of the party’s military machine at peak discipline and effectiveness. Hezbollah’s missile operations escalated, with Tel Aviv targeted by ten ballistic missiles yesterday, while the north of the occupying entity remained under continuous fire. Meanwhile, the Israeli ground assault, meant to be a qualitative military operation, ended in a humiliating failure, as Hezbollah’s resistance forces implemented effective preemptive countermeasures. Fire control returned to Hezbollah’s hands, and the deterrence equation laid out by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – “the southern suburbs for Tel Aviv” – was restored. With every Israeli strike on the southern suburbs, missiles would rain down on Tel Aviv’s northern and southern outskirts, making the city and its population an insurance policy for the protection of Beirut.
• Hezbollah deserves all the support from the resistance’s allies and the admirers of its fallen leader to help it stand on its feet and regain its full strength. The stability of Lebanon, the power of the resistance axis, and the status of the Palestinian cause now depend on Hezbollah’s recovery.
