Hezbollah sustained several months of rocket and drone launches into Israeli territory in 2026, though on a smaller scale than in 2024, according to an opinion article by Sarit Zehavi. The article cites Alma Center assessments that Hezbollah still possesses as many as approximately 15,000 rockets and missiles.
Zehavi describes a weakened organization that hasn’t disappeared. Hezbollah is recruiting and training operatives, updating plans, gathering intelligence and restoring weapons systems, she wrote. Weapons smuggling from Syria continues, including rockets, advanced anti-tank missiles, UAVs and other components. The article also says Hezbollah is working to manufacture and repair weapons inside Lebanon.
The operation’s impact
Thousands of Hezbollah operatives were injured by pagers and other communications devices during the operation, the article says. Three days later, Ibrahim Aqil was eliminated along with 14 commanders from Radwan Force brigades, a strike on the force’s chain of command.
Zehavi wrote that the operation damaged Hezbollah’s morale and operational functioning. It also weakened capabilities and personnel developed over many years for its firepower and invasion plans. Hezbollah’s plan to invade the Galilee was neutralized, its ground forces in southern Lebanon had collapsed, and its firepower array no longer existed on the scale originally planned, the article says.
Those losses made it easier for the IDF to operate against infrastructure prepared for an invasion of Israel in southern Lebanon. The pager operation, the killing of Hezbollah’s leadership and the blow to the Radwan Force formed part of a sequence Zehavi says changed the Middle East, alongside the revolution in Syria and Israeli strikes against Iran.
Regional consequences and rebuilding
Zehavi describes the operation’s effects as psychological as well as operational. She wrote that it restored Israel’s standing as a security power able to carry out operations once considered unimaginable, and strengthened its deterrence after October 7. It also helped restore Israelis’ trust in their security establishment after the October 7 massacre in the south and the disappointment of northern residents who had been under fire for 11 months, the article says.
In Syria, Hezbollah’s weakening created an opportunity for Ahmed al-Sharaa’s revolution. Al-Sharaa had been waiting in Idlib for an opportune moment, then acted after understanding that Hezbollah, described in the article as Basher Assad’s principal regional ally, had been weakened.
The Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces have repeatedly failed to fulfill their commitment to disarm Hezbollah, the article says. Hezbollah continues efforts to rebuild its military capacity, even as its recent launches were on a smaller scale than in 2024.
The policy Zehavi advocates
Zehavi identifies two challenges: preventing the reconstruction of the Shi’ite axis and preventing its replacement by what she calls a radical Sunni axis comprising Syria, Qatar and Turkey. She asks: “How can actors interested in reaching arrangements with Israel be strengthened, while those seeking to destroy it continue to be weakened?”
She argues that the international system should take an uncompromising approach toward what she calls murderous ideologies, terrorism and hatred of the West. The Israeli government should lead efforts alongside local actors such as the Lebanese government and international actors such as the United States, the article says. Zehavi calls the pager operation a one-time event planned over many years and writes that Israel shouldn't rely on repeating it to prevent Hezbollah and other organizations from rebuilding.