In 2026, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israeli territory for several months, though on a smaller scale than in 2024, while rebuilding its military and retaining an estimated 15,000 rockets and missiles, according to Alma Center assessments cited by Sarit Zehavi. The pager operation damaged Hezbollah’s forces and command structure. It didn’t make the armed organization disappear.
Zehavi’s opinion article presents the operation as a restoration of Israeli deterrence and security confidence. Its account also describes a contest between military apparatuses: Israel’s ability to penetrate Hezbollah’s communications and strike its leadership, and Hezbollah’s continuing efforts to recruit, train and rearm. People living under those forces appear mostly through the article’s account of Israeli residents under fire and its description of operations. The costs to civilians aren’t detailed.
The operation and its claims
Zehavi says the operation had psychological and operational achievements. After October 7 and the disappointment of northern residents who had been under fire for 11 months, she writes, it restored Israelis’ trust in their security establishment and showed the region that Israel could reach sensitive enemy systems. These are the article’s assessments, not independent measures of public confidence or deterrence.
The operation injured thousands of Hezbollah operatives using pagers and other communications devices. Three days later, Ibrahim Aqil died along with 14 commanders from Radwan Force brigades, damaging the force’s chain of command. Zehavi says the strikes weakened personnel and capabilities developed for Hezbollah’s firepower and invasion plans, including its plan to invade the Galilee. She writes that ground forces in southern Lebanon collapsed and the organization’s planned firepower array no longer exists at its original scale.
The article places that sequence within a wider chain of events, alongside Israeli strikes against Iran and the revolution in Syria. It says Hezbollah’s weakening created an opening for Ahmed al-Sharaa, who had been waiting in Idlib and seized the moment after Hezbollah, described as Basher Assad’s principal regional ally, was weakened.
Rearmament and the missing enforcement
Hezbollah is making considerable efforts to rebuild, Zehavi writes: recruiting and training operatives, updating plans, gathering intelligence, and restoring weapons systems. The article says weapons smuggling from Syria continues, including rockets, advanced anti-tank missiles, UAVs and other components; weapons are also manufactured and repaired inside Lebanon.
The Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces have repeatedly failed to meet their commitment to disarm Hezbollah. That failure leaves the weapons question unresolved, while the article proposes a sustained policy led by Israel, local actors such as the Lebanese government, and international actors such as the United States. The piece doesn’t identify what enforcement would mean for people living where those military operations unfold.
Zehavi warns against expecting another “rabbit out of the hat.” She argues that the international system must take an uncompromising approach toward what she calls murderous ideologies, terrorism and hatred of the West, and says pressure on Israel allows armed organizations to survive and rebuild. Her framing centers deterrence and the capacity to uproot organizations; it doesn’t explain how that policy would constrain the power of states and armies themselves.
The article calls the pager operation a one-time event planned over many years. Its closing question is how to strengthen actors interested in arrangements with Israel while weakening those seeking to destroy it. That’s a question about which authorities should gain leverage. The article’s own facts show the unresolved contest: Hezbollah’s weapons and recruitment efforts continue, while Israel’s military operations and the international system’s choices shape what comes next.