Nasrallah made assumptions about Israel - and it cost him his life - analysis

It happened right after the signing of the ceasefire agreement with Israel at the end of the Second Lebanon War (2006). Hassan Nasrallah, the then secretary-general of Hezbollah, delivered an unforgettable interview to the Lebanese news network New TV. Sitting comfortably in his bunker beneath the streets of Beirut’s Dahiyeh, Nasrallah admitted that he and the Jihad Council – Hezbollah’s supreme body – had made a serious miscalculation.

“We did not estimate, even by one percent, that the kidnapping of IDF soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) would lead to a war of this magnitude with Israel,” Nasrallah confessed, adding, “Had we known that the kidnapping operation would lead to such a result, we would not have undertaken it at all.”

Despite this blunder, Nasrallah managed to maintain his reputation for 18 years as the Middle East’s foremost expert on Israeli society – until recent months when the tables turned. Nasrallah, along with most members of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, were killed by IAF bombs. They are no longer around to grasp, for a second time, the scale of their error.

Following October 7, Nasrallah made another poor decision – one that, two weeks ago, became clear as his last major mistake. He tied Hezbollah’s fate to Hamas in Gaza and launched a war. 

This move speaks volumes about the mentality on the Israeli side as well. Over the past two decades, both Israel’s political leadership and the IDF general staff hesitated to confront the Shi’ite terrorist group, often choosing to delay war or strong retaliation to attacks, even at the cost of allowing Hezbollah’s disproportionate growth and a decline in deterrence.

But more than anything, Nasrallah’s final, fatal misstep reveals a fascinating strategic deception that had been in the works for months, led by the IDF’s operations directorate. This deception ultimately led to Israel’s official declaration: the Nasrallah era is over.

Nasrallah’s assumption was straightforward: he believed Israel would not expand the war against Hezbollah or launch a ground invasion in Lebanon as long as Hamas held 101 hostages and troops were still in the enclave.

It appears that Nasrallah believed he could detect clear signs of a change in Israel’s policy toward Hezbollah. He believed he could detect early indicators of a ground invasion, such as preparations along the border and movements of Lebanese civilians. But the IDF, understanding his thought process, deliberately changed the sequence of actions to confuse him – a move that paid off.

In recent months, Nasrallah seemed unfazed by the reduced fighting in Gaza and unconvinced by the government’s threats and warnings from military officials to stop firing on the North. What sealed his fate was his speech about a “war of attrition” against Israel.

Like the rest of the IDF, the operations directorate was caught off guard on October 7 and shares in the historic and bitter failure. But this time, they were ready with a detailed, creative operational plan, which included several “ladders” for Nasrallah to climb down from his position. 

The guiding principle was to proceed gradually, but skillfully, exposing Hezbollah’s most sensitive areas and destroying them. Security officials explained that such a plan required out-of-the-box thinking, relying on high-quality intelligence, the precision and timing of the IAF, and synchronizing all these components with the “war clock.”

The framework, objectives, and thresholds for the operation were set by the head of the Operations Directorate, Maj.-Gen. Oded Basiuk. The responsibility for ensuring the synchronization and accuracy of various strikes was given to Brig.-Gen. R., head of the Attack Division, one of the IAF’s most experienced fighter pilots, who previously commanded a fighter squadron and the Fire Center of the Southern Command and had been marked early in his career as a future general.

In the IDF’s target bank were several critical clusters: Hezbollah’s senior leadership, top commanders and field leaders, the organization’s weapons arsenal – particularly its strategic systems – terror infrastructure such as launch sites, warehouses, and command centers, and intelligence and command and control sites. Thus, the operation unfolded, blow after blow:

The deadly domino against Hezbollah

July 30: The operation began with the assassination of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s de facto chief of staff and member of the Jihad Council, responsible for the organization’s strategic systems and its precision missile project. His elimination in Dahiyeh marked a turning point.

August 25: A broad preemptive strike severely degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, destroying launchers aimed at central Israel. This attack was made possible by high-quality intelligence and precision execution, all seamlessly coordinated.

September 5: Daily waves of attacks targeted hundreds of rocket launchers. A critical mass was building, while Hezbollah was left confused and struggling to form a coherent picture of the IDF’s true intentions.

September 17-18: Two strikes, attributed to Israel, took place. One involved beepers exploding in the hands, pockets, and faces of Hezbollah operatives. A similar attack targeted their walkie-talkies, turning them into bombs in an instant. This neutralized thousands of Hezbollah operatives and left hundreds of commanders blinded.

September 20: The IDF killed Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s head of operations and de facto chief of staff, after Shukr’s assassination. The strike also claimed the lives of several senior members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.

September 23: Operation Northern Arrows was launched across Lebanon. So far, the IDF has demonstrated intelligence and aerial superiority. During one dramatic strike, Hezbollah was bombarded from the air for 15 continuous hours, targeting strategic capabilities such as surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, and drones.

September 27: In a targeted killing that shook the Middle East, Israel killed Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah leaders.

Despite these heavy blows – perhaps because of them – Hezbollah did not remain idle. In response, it expanded its rocket range and drone operations to the Haifa area and, after a period of adjustment, began focusing on central Israel. Simultaneously, the impact of the strikes was undeniable: a pivotal moment in the war compelled Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to refine their arms smuggling routes to Beirut.

According to Israeli estimates, Hezbollah now has only a fraction of its 122 mm rockets capable of reaching Haifa and only a similar percentage of rockets that can reach Tel Aviv. It is believed that Hezbollah now holds less than a third of its stockpile of precision missiles and long-range rockets, which cover the entirety of Israel.

Security officials praised the multi-stage plan. The element of surprise allowed Israel to achieve significant progress against the terrorist group, which now feels exposed and hunted. Above all, the plan deprived Nasrallah of the ability to detect the early signs of what was coming. 

Big and convenient targets

In Israel, it is estimated that military operations over the past six months led Nasrallah to relocate advanced military capabilities from southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley to Beirut, mistakenly believing that American and European pressure would protect the capital city from Israeli airstrikes. This turned out to be a double mistake: not only did it expose Hezbollah’s systems to Israeli intelligence, but it also concentrated most of them in a single area, making it easier for the IDF to strike them.

Officials close to the decision-making process noted the differences between Nasrallah and Sinwar – differences that may have contributed to Nasrallah’s downfall. According to these sources, Nasrallah managed the war against Israel with an extremely centralized approach, which required his physical presence at Hezbollah’s command centers, making his elimination all the more impactful. In contrast, Sinwar, unlike Nasrallah, only sets broad policy and then disappears from the radar for about a month at a time.

The strikes against Hezbollah didn’t end with Nasrallah’s death. Last Monday, at 2:30 p.m., the IDF attacked more than 100 Hezbollah targets with hundreds of munitions, killing commanders of Hezbollah’s operational systems, acting brigade commanders, chiefs of staff, artillery commanders, and 200 senior operatives. The before-and-after images of the attack sites left no doubt about the quality of the strikes and the number of casualties.

The military has clarified that Hezbollah is deeply entrenched in Lebanon, and it will be very difficult to completely eradicate the group. However, over time, it will be possible to degrade its capabilities, reduce its influence, and shrink its power. To achieve this, Hezbollah must be viewed as a single system, and the military must continue to strike it as methodically as they have done so far – with sophistication.