Hezbollah aims to rebuild long term despite Israeli blows, says US intel 

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been degraded significantly militarily by Israel, but the Iran-backed group will likely try to rebuild its stockpiles and forces and pose a long-term threat to the US and its regional allies, four sources briefed on updated US intelligence have told Reuters.

US intelligence agencies have in recent weeks assessed that Hezbollah, even amid Israel’s military campaign, had begun to recruit new fighters and was trying to find ways to rearm through domestic production and by smuggling materials through Syria, said a senior US official, an Israeli official and two US lawmakers briefed on the intelligence, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It’s unclear to what extent those efforts have slowed since last week when Hezbollah and Israel reached a shaky ceasefire, said two of the sources. The deal specifically prohibits Hezbollah from procuring weapons or weapon parts.

In recent days, Israel has tried to undermine Hezbollah’s ability to rebuild its military forces, striking several Hezbollah rocket launchers in Lebanon, bombing border crossings with Syria, and blocking an Iranian aircraft suspected of ferrying weapons for the group. According to the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, UNIFIL, Israel has breached the Lebanon ceasefire “100 times”.

US intelligence agencies assess that Hezbollah is operating with limited firepower. It has lost more than half its weapons stockpiles and thousands of fighters during the conflict with Israel, reducing its overall military capacity to its lowest point in decades. However, Hezbollah has not been destroyed. It still maintains thousands of short-range rockets in Lebanon and it will try to rebuild using weapons factories in neighbouring countries with available transport routes, said the sources.

One of the lawmakers said that the movement has been “knocked back” in the short term and had its ability to conduct, command and control reduced. But the lawmaker added: “This organisation is designed to be disrupted.”

US officials are concerned about Hezbollah’s access to Syria, where Syrian rebels launched an offensive recently to retake government strongholds in Aleppo and Hama. Hezbollah has long used Syria as a safe haven and transport hub, taking military equipment and weapons from Iraq, through Syria and into Lebanon through the rugged border crossings.

Washington is trying to pressure Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to limit Hezbollah’s operations, enlisting other countries in the region to help, a senior US official said. On Monday, it was reported that the US and the UAE have discussed the possible lifting of sanctions on Assad if he peels himself away from Iran and cuts off weapons routes to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah officials have said that the group will continue to function as a resistance group against Israel, but its Secretary General Naim Qassem has not brought up the group’s weapons in recent speeches, including those after the ceasefire was reached. Sources in Lebanon say that Hezbollah’s priority is rebuilding homes for its constituency after Israeli air strikes destroyed swaths of Lebanon’s south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The US National Security Council and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence declined to comment on the updated US intelligence.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said last week that Hezbollah has not been weakened by Israel’s killing of many of its leaders since January and by its ground assault against the group since early October. He said that the movement has been able to reorganise and fight back effectively.

However, US intelligence indicates that Israel has taken out thousands of Hezbollah’s missiles in Lebanon, pushing cadres of its fighters back from the border with Israel, the sources told Reuters. While tracking the exact number of Hezbollah fighters remains a challenge, the intelligence notes that the group will likely face significant training challenges for years to come, the sources said.

US officials say that Hezbollah’s breakdown points to a growing gap in Iran’s military capacity and raises doubts about its ability to use its proxies to attack Israel and its other adversaries in the short term. Iran also backs Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Houthis in Yemen.

In the past, Israel has considered bombing Iran, but it faced the prospect of Hezbollah in Lebanon reciprocating, said a second US official, but with Hezbollah weakened, Israel can attack Iran directly without the same threat across its northern border.

In Gaza, US intelligence indicates that Hamas can only sustain small, guerrilla-style tactics after having lost at least half of its fighters during the Israeli genocide. The Houthis continue to launch missiles and drones from Yemen, but the US has been able to intercept most of them.

The updated U.S. intelligence — briefed to senior officials and lawmakers in recent weeks — emerges ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump’s 20 January inauguration. The US charged an Iranian man last month in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. Iran has rejected the accusation.

During his first term in office, Trump embraced a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, imposing harsh sanctions on Tehran, its military complex and its most lucrative economic sectors. In 2018, Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 international agreement meant to deny Tehran the ability to build nuclear weapons. Trump was responsible for a 2020 strike in Iraq that killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani.

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