Hezbollah fled from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in southern Lebanon, refusing to confront them in direct combat during the two months in which Israel has been on the ground there, removing terrorist border positions.
A senior military official from the IDF, speaking to Breitbart News on condition that his name not be used, said: “They [Hezbollah] left the battle zone … Unlike their ethos, they didn’t stay and fight. Not in the numbers that they were claiming … Every face-to-face encounter ended with the elimination of the enemy force.”
The official’s claim is corroborated by the relatively low number of combat deaths among IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon. While there have been occasional ambushes or skirmishes, Hezbollah fighters have typically abandoned their positions.
Hezbollah positions had also sustained nearly 11 months of airstrikes by Israel, after Hezbollah began the conflict by firing on Israel’s border communities on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Hamas terror attack the day before.
Israel also eliminated the senior echelon of Hezbollah commanders, and destroyed the group’s communications network, in its daring use of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies before beginning its ground assault in September.
The fact that the IDF has routed Hezbollah, and that the terror group is unable to defend southern Lebanon, is a blow to the prestige of the organization, which claimed for years that its fighters were tougher than IDF soldiers.
A 60-day ceasefire is expected to be accepted by both sides in the coming days, bringing the current phase of the conflict to a close. Hezbollah may attempt to rebuild, but the strategic balance has been changed in Israel’s favor.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
