After Pieper attacks and Ibrahim Aqil assassination, Hezbollah is lost

After 11 months of attacks by the Iran-backed terror group, Israeli forces turned the tables. On Friday they eliminated Ibrahim Aqil, just two days after Hezbollah's walkie-talkies exploded and three days after thousands of Hezbollah members were injured by exploding pagers.

After months of responding only proportionately to Hezbollah's attacks, it now seems as if Israel is turning the tables. It is not yet clear whether this will turn the tide of the war.

“I can now confirm that Ibrahim Aqil has been eliminated along with other high-ranking terrorists from Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces,” an IDF spokesman said.

Who is Ibrahim Aqil?

Aqil has been wanted by the United States as a terrorist for decades because he killed Americans in bombings in the 1980s.

The Israeli military accused him of planning a major attack on Israel similar to the October 7 Hamas attack. Israel is now proving that its claim that it can reach anyone who threatens Israelis is true.

People inspect the site of an Israeli attack in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, September 20, 2024. (Source: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR)

Too big to fail?

Hezbollah is currently suffering one setback after another. It is fearful and in chaos. And it is embarrassing. Its ageing leadership, which includes Hassan Nasrallah and Naim Qassem, must be asking itself whether it has enough cards left to play. It has a large arsenal of rockets and missiles and has built many new drones, but is it ready for a major war? Is Hezbollah too big to fail? It will be discussing its next steps with Iran.

Since October 7, Hezbollah has found a balance in its attacks on Israel. On October 8, attacks against northern Israel began. Israel evacuated the northern communities. Hezbollah mainly attacked the evacuated communities, usually claiming that they were Israeli military sites.

Overall, Hezbollah's more than 8,500 attacks have caused damage and claimed lives, but they have not changed the outcome of the war.

Hezbollah was pushed into attack by Iran to take the pressure off Hamas and start a multi-front war with Israel. It has settled into a routine of attrition. It sees this as an equation from which it can profit. Israel has now turned the tables and upset the equation, breaking it and destroying its parameters.

Hezbollah lost Fuad Shukr, a key commander, in July after killing 12 people in Majdal Shams. It lost dozens of its commanders in southern Lebanon.

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Let us briefly consider this Hezbollah stance. Hezbollah's Nasser unit controls the area from Bint Jbeil in the east, essentially to Mount Hermon. Taleb Sami Abdallah was the commander of the Nasser division. He was killed in June.

Muhammad Neamah Nasser was the commander of Hezbollah's western Aziz division, which controls the area from Bint Jbeil to the coast. He was killed in March.

Hezbollah's Aziz Division controls an area where it faces the Israel Defense Forces' 300th Territorial Brigade, which commands the western sector of the northern Galilee under the Israel Defense Forces' 91st Division.

Essentially, the key Hezbollah commanders who controlled the threats on the border with Israel were eliminated. In addition, the leader of the Radwan Force, Wissam Tawil, was also killed in January 2024.

Israel has eliminated about fifty percent of Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon.

However, the slow elimination of Hezbollah commanders took place over a long period of time. In eleven months, Hezbollah lost around 450 fighters. Then on September 17, the group suffered unprecedented losses when around two dozen of its members were killed in the explosions of the pagers and walkie-talkies on September 18. This brings the total number of Hezbollah members killed to more than 470.

Hezbollah is out of balance. It prided itself on being a well-functioning elite organization, like a kind of state with an army. Now there is chaos. While Israel is causing unrest, Hezbollah is making mistakes. It wants to lash out.

The meeting with Aqil and Radwan's commanders was probably intended to plan Hezbollah's next move. Now Aqil has been eliminated, this is reminiscent of the days when Israel eliminated Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March 2004 and also killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi the following month. This is how terrorist organizations can suffer setbacks.

The question now, however, is whether Israel will take advantage of this change of tide. So far, Iran has let Hezbollah and other proxies take the lead in setting the pace of operations. Israel responded while focusing on Gaza and the West Bank. Now Israel may be ready for the northern front.

The question is what Iran and Hezbollah will do.

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Who is Ibrahim Aqil?

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