ABNA24 - In the face of the massive and occupational invasion by the Israeli regime, Lebanese Hezbollah has introduced a tangible change to its operational doctrine.
While in the past the main focus was on missile strikes deep into the occupied territories, now there are pieces of evidence showing that Hezbollah has re-embarked on guerilla warfare strategy, a model of fighting against invading forces that made up the backbone of the resistance group’s military strategy in the 33-day war of 2006 in southern Lebanon.
This strategy shift was confirmed in recent days by the Israeli media and now there is a question: What does this approach shift mean and why is Hezbollah shifting to this strategy in this stage of the conflict?
Reasons and signs of return to guerrilla warfare
Re-embracing the guerrilla warfare is not a retreat but a smart tactic change to counter enemy’s technological superiority. Essentially, Lebanon’s Hezbollah as an organized militant group is one of the most skilled guerrilla groups of the world enjoying vast experiences in using guerrilla and partisan warfare tactics. Actually, this form of war is the main advantage and strength of this resistance movement. Here are six reasons it returned to this model of fighting the occupation forces.
1. Boosting maneuverability and operational mobility
Guerrilla warfare allows Hezbollah to outmaneuver the enemy on the battlefield, launching operations from one or multiple fronts, striking quickly, and retreating before the Israeli army can react or mount an effective defense.
This approach proves especially effective given the regime’s complete air superiority and the constant buzzing of enemy reconnaissance drones over the combat zone. It enables resistance fighters to evade aerial surveillance and land their blows at the right place and time.
By turning southern Lebanon’s terrain and border villages into the main theater of war, elite Radwan forces, battle-hardened and backed by locals who know every inch of the land, can move with remarkable speed and agility.
In this connection, Israel’s Channel 13 has admitted that Hezbollah, by reverting to guerrilla tactics, has succeeded in pressuring, harassing, and exhausting the Israeli military.
2. Focusing on small operations, taking captives, and inflicting damage
By entering a guerrilla warfare instead of heavy classic confrontations, Hezbollah is focusing on small and targeted operations aimed at taking captives and inflicting damage on the enemy forces. This kind of operations imposes huge political and psychological costs on the Israeli occupation army.
One of the weakest points in the Israeli army is casualties and prisoners, issues that quickly sow division and discord within both the cabinet and Israeli society. A striking example came during the 2006 war, following Hezbollah’s successful operation inside occupied territories in July of that year. Moreover, Israelis’ historical memory of Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, 2023, and the months-long captivity of a large number of settlers, serves as a bitter reminder of a devastating defeat. Should Hezbollah replicate that scenario on the northern front, it would feel like the return of a terrible nightmare.
Despite heavy military censorship, released figures on regime casualties and wounded soldiers show that Hezbollah’s war strategy is working. In early May, the regime’s Health Ministry, without providing a death toll, announced that the number of wounded on the northern front had reached 596, 178 of them after the ceasefire. But in the army’s latest update, those numbers look markedly different, as the regime’s total military casualties since the start of March now stand at 20.
3. Psychological pressure through stirring permanent insecurity
One of the main objectives of this strategy by Hezbollah is to destroy the calm of the Israeli army and impose a heavy psychological pressure on it. Distributed operations cause persistent terror in the camps and patrol units, something in which the enemy forces live every moment of fear of a possible attack. This permanent sense of insecurity erodes their combat and psychological capabilities and encourages desertions.
Channel 13 of Israel reported that Hezbollah’s plan has paid off and the movement’s forces keep chasing the army personnel, exhausting their energy to fight, and dealing blow to them.
Haaretz said that an army report released recently talked about increase in the number of troops fleeing military service, with 80 percent of it driven by psychological health problems.
The newspaper warned on April 25 in a report that war has left millions of Israelis struggling with psychological damage, and after the war, extensive psychological disorders in this regime have reached alarming levels.
4. Cutting reliance on heavy weaponry
With the skies under enemy control, swarming with drones and fighter jets, deploying heavy weapons only makes it easier for the enemy to target your forces. A return to guerrilla warfare reduces the need for bulky equipment and shifts the focus to light arms, anti-tank missiles, and compact but lethal tools.
In this context, consider the stunning performance of untraceable lightweight fiber-optic drones and anti-tank missiles that have destroyed armored vehicles even when faced with Israel’s Trophy defense system on tanks and armored personnel carriers.
5. Weaponizing the terrain
Given the imbalance between Hezbollah and Israeli regime in terms of military power, Hezbollah uses Lebanon’s geographical features as a weapon. In this model, the terrain of operations is turned into a part of the defense system to make the war lengthy and erosive, neutralizing the technological superiority of the enemy.
6. Cellular command structure
One of the most critical shifts is the move from centralized command to isolated field command cells. In this structure, each operational unit acts independently, with full autonomy over its decisions. This decentralization cripples the enemy’s reconnaissance, surveillance, and preemptive strikes, since taking out one cell does not paralyze the entire network.
Conclusion
Hezbollah’s return to the guerrilla warfare indicates the depth of its understanding of the nature of the asymmetrical warfare. This strategy is designed to turn the battleground into a death trap for the occupation forces and exhausting their military and psychological capabilities. To put it differently, it is a path where superior technological power proves helpless against distributed intelligence and enduring momentum.
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