Summary: A year after the assassination of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s public debate revolves around Hezbollah’s place in the national equation and its political-military future. Calls for disarmament have intensified, while supporters insist the movement’s weapons remain existential against Israel and essential for safeguarding Lebanon’s Shi‘a community. Beneath perceptions of decline, Israeli analysts warn the risk of a fresh war remains real and immediate.
The Nasrallah Effect
In Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel, Nicholas Blanford notes that from 1992 Nasrallah transformed Hezbollah from emerging guerrilla bands into a disciplined, professional military organisation. Under his leadership, the movement also built a broad network of institutions — education, culture, health, social services and finance — under the vision of a “society of resistance.” These ran parallel to state structures and positioned Hezbollah as a primary political actor within successive Lebanese governments.
Beyond organisation-building, Nasrallah personally anchored the party’s presence in national life: directing the fight against Israel during its occupation of South Lebanon; delivering a mobilising political discourse that tethered the base to its leadership (as Augustus Norton describes in Hezbollah: A Short History); and extending the party’s reach into regional theatres such as Syria and Iraq. After the U.S. assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, Nasrallah emerged as the axis’s central strategist and public lodestar.
Shock and Vacuum After the Assassination
Nasrallah’s killing shocked Hezbollah’s ranks and supporters at home and abroad — akin to removing a central pillar from the movement’s political and organisational edifice.
The first shock was operational: the assassination coincided with a sweeping security breach that allowed Israel to reach a figure protected by extraordinary secrecy. It followed the pager and radio explosions, which killed dozens and injured around 3,000 party cadres; the assassination of the Radwan Force leadership during a meeting chaired by Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah’s Operations Authority; and the subsequent killing of the next Secretary-General Hashem Safieddine alongside his aides. These blows prompted hard questions about counter-intelligence readiness and the ability to repair technological and human penetrations that degraded capability.
The shock was also social-political. A base accustomed to Nasrallah’s wartime and peacetime addresses found itself facing a communicative void. The new Secretary-General Na’im Qassem adopted a more organisational, less rousing tone that did not replicate Nasrallah’s emotive impact. Within the Shi‘a milieu, anticipation and anxiety replaced the usual surge of enthusiasm that often accompanied Hezbollah’s escalatory moments.
The vacuum also affected Hezbollah’s long-standing balance between mobilisation and political pragmatism. Nasrallah’s authority enabled him to push through difficult decisions — from entering the Syrian war to brokering domestic understandings with the Free Patriotic Movement under Michel Aoun — without triggering major internal rifts. Analysts argue the current leadership lacks that outsized moral presence capable of giving every decision blanket legitimacy among the base.
Institutionally, Hezbollah managed a relatively swift transition: its internal system, tied to religious mandate and wilāyat al-faqīh, enabled leadership succession without public infighting — a contrast with other organisations that splintered after losing a leader. Yet the smooth handover did not mask the strategic loss of a unifying figure who bridged institutions and street, and projected strength to adversaries. Reflecting this climate, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt argued that Hezbollah’s political and military leadership must recognise that “times have changed” and shift from armed struggle to politics.
A year on, the party still lives with the consequences. The structure works; the cadres are being re-knit. But the void remains. The central challenge is whether Hezbollah can regenerate a leadership image that restores public confidence and convinces supporters the project has not been broken — a test that, absent a Nasrallah-sized charisma, will shape the coming phase.
The Collapse of the Rules of Engagement
The twelve months after the assassination brought dramatic change to the Hezbollah–Israel confrontation. The long-standing equation of mutual deterrence and tacit rules of engagement eroded steadily, with the “pager battle” of September 2024 marking a key inflection point.
By 2025, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi (Eyal) Zamir — during a field tour in Israel-occupied areas of South Lebanon — declared: “Our task is to shape our national security as we see fit. We will not go backwards. We are operating under a new strategic concept, and we will not allow threats to grow.” In practice, Israel struck where and when it wished, often without a Hezbollah response.
Since 2006, both sides had operated below the threshold of full-scale war, managing limited, containable exchanges. Nasrallah personally embedded “rules of the game” that he said prevented Israel from freely violating Lebanon while allowing Hezbollah to avoid a ruinous war — including the “Tel Aviv for Beirut” balance and the formula that strikes on Hezbollah in Syria would trigger retaliation from Lebanon. In 2015, for example, Hezbollah hit an Israeli military convoy near Shebaa Farms — killing an officer and a soldier and wounding others — in response to Israel’s killing of Jihad Imad Mughniyeh and several cadres in Syria.
That architecture cracked as Israel escalated pre-emptive strikes and targeted senior figures: the killing of Saleh al-Arouri (Hamas deputy leader) in Beirut’s southern suburbs in January 2024, followed by the assassination of Hezbollah commander Fu’ad Shukr, signalled a systematic push to break red lines and exit the deterrence regime.
Hezbollah tried to hold to a “war of points” — calibrated responses designed to avoid an uncontrolled spiral and spare Lebanon a devastating war. Israel interpreted this as space to widen manoeuvre and reset the rules. By September 2024, it launched successive, devastating blows in a short span, outpacing Hezbollah’s ability to pre-empt or absorb.
Before the November 2024 ceasefire, Hezbollah answered with qualitative attacks inside Israel. On 13 October 2024, a strike hit a Golani Brigade base near Binyamina; a UAV hit a base canteen, killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding around 70. Less than a week later, a drone reached the Prime Minister’s residence in Caesarea and struck his bedroom — an unprecedented operation during wartime that targeted the premier at home. The psychological intent was clear: restore the base’s sense of capability, expose Israel’s depth as vulnerable, and demonstrate that interception systems fall short — that, despite losses, Hezbollah retains the intelligence and strike capacity to inflict pain.
Weapons, the Ceasefire, and Lebanon’s Domestic Arena
Hezbollah’s acceptance of a ceasefire reflected hard calculations about the cost of continued war. On the ground, the party could still launch rockets and UAVs, conduct special operations, and block an Israeli ground breakthrough. But it incurred significant human and material losses, while most border villages suffered destruction and displacement.
As the war’s toll mounted on organisation and community — compounded by the absence of Nasrallah’s conflict-management aura — the price of open confrontation outgrew Hezbollah’s bandwidth. Israel had eliminated much of the party’s first- and second-tier leadership, destroyed numerous bases and depots, and — according to Reuters citing Secretary-General Na’im Qassem — killed about 5,000 fighters and wounded roughly double that number.
Analyst Orna Mizrahi at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies contends Hezbollah sought a surface calm to recover and rebuild. Yet the ceasefire did not deliver stability: Israel continued daily violations — air intrusions and strikes reaching the southern suburbs and Beqaa — keeping Hezbollah under pressure and slowing reconstruction of military capacity.
The result is a restricted truce, not an end to the round. The party no longer imposes previous red lines; the deterrence balance — long a signature achievement of Nasrallah’s tenure — is compromised. Hezbollah faces a grind: either absorb near-daily Israeli blows — about 4,500 ceasefire violations, per Na’im Qassem — or risk a major escalation that could endanger remaining assets and cadres.
Domestically, Nasrallah’s assassination reignited the weapons debate. The decline of his symbolic hegemony made the file more exposed. Lebanese forces renewed calls for disarmament. This time, the push unfolded within a new reality set by the war’s field and political outcomes. Hezbollah sought political cover under Amal and Nabih Berri, bringing its stance under the umbrella of the Shi‘a duo rather than alone.
In parallel, Washington and European capitals used the lull to reopen UNSCR 1559 and related files, pressing for disarmament. Inside Beirut, a narrative spread that blamed Hezbollah for destruction and losses, amplifying external pressure.
Consequently, the ceasefire opened another battlefront: sustained security pressure on the ground, plus political-diplomatic pressure to redefine Hezbollah’s place in Lebanon — tying foreign and Arab investment and reconstruction to the weapons file.
Regional and Local Dimensions
Facing government demands and U.S. pressure to disarm, Hezbollah worked on two tracks:
- Reassert the traditional narrative: arms are a national guarantee against Israel, with added caution about regional volatility after coastal and Sweida events in Syria;
- Signal conditional openness: discuss disarmament only within a comprehensive national defence strategy, stressing that the Lebanese Army lacks the capacity to face Israel alone — a bid to defer any decisive move on weapons.
When the government publicly adopted disarmament as a goal before year-end, Hezbollah hardened its rhetoric. Secretary-General Na’im Qassem even warned of civil war should the state push the process forward. The President and Lebanese Army defused the crisis — temporarily — by adopting a five-phase plan to address Hezbollah’s arms without announced timelines. U.S. envoy Tom Brock then stated openly that Beirut offers “only words” out of fear of civil war, adding that Israel would handle Hezbollah itself if Lebanon failed to do so.
Nasrallah’s absence coincided with profound regional shifts: the Assad regime fell, stripping Hezbollah of strategic depth and logistics; Iran itself sustained direct U.S.–Israeli strikes and pressure that curtailed its ability to shield and supply allies. Hezbollah thus lost much of the regional cover once provided by Tehran and Damascus.
In that context, Deputy Secretary-General Na’im Qassem moved to open a page with Riyadh, seeking political channels to counter isolation and to leverage regional resentment over Israeli strikes on Doha, redirecting criticism and enmity toward Israel as a common threat.
The net effect: without Nasrallah, Hezbollah finds it harder to persuade domestic and external audiences of the legitimacy of its arms. Economic and political pressures make it difficult to leave the file frozen indefinitely, opening the door to uncertainty.
At a Crossroads
A year since Nasrallah’s assassination has not ended Hezbollah’s story — but it has ended an entire era. The ceasefire exposed a reduced ability to enforce deterrence equations, while U.S., regional and local pressures have made the disarmament question more urgent.
In response, Hezbollah bets on resilience: absorbing shocks, repairing losses, and cautiously opening to new environments to reposition itself as a continuing Lebanese player — even at the cost of stepping back from its prior image as a transnational force led by an exceptional charismatic figure. Adversaries understand this recalibration and are working to finish the job. Hezbollah, for its part, leans on what remains of its power — and the time it hopes to use to rebuild and accumulate leverage to deter harsher moves on its weapons.
Between these poles, watchfulness prevails — and the next phase will be decided by whether Hezbollah can refashion leadership, restore confidence among its base, and navigate relentless pressure without losing the core of what has sustained it.
