Lebanon's Hezbollah works to curb hefty losses in Israel clashes, sources say

With dozens of Hezbollah fighters killed in three weeks of border clashes with Israel, the Lebanese group is working to stem its losses as it prepares for the possibility of a drawn-out conflict, three sources familiar with its thinking said.

The Iran-backed group has lost 47 fighters to Israeli strikes at Lebanon's frontier since its Palestinian ally Hamas and Israel went to war on October 7 - about a fifth of the number killed in a full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Reuters reports.

With the majority of its militants killed in Israeli drone attacks, Hezbollah has revealed for the first time its surface-to-air missile capability, announcing on Sunday that it has destroyed an Israeli drone. The missiles are part of an ever-expanding arsenal.

The Israeli military has not commented on Sunday’s reported drone incident. But Israel said on Saturday it had stopped a surface-to-air missile fired from Lebanon at one of its drones and that it responded by striking the launch site.

One of the sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking told Reuters that the use of anti-aircraft missiles was one of several steps taken by the Shi’ite Muslim group to curb its losses and counter Israeli drones, which have picked off its fighters in the rocky terrain and olive groves along the border.

Hezbollah had made “arrangements to reduce the number of martyrs”, the source said, without offering further details.

Since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war, Hezbollah’s attacks have been calibrated to contain clashes to the border zone, even as it has indicated a readiness for all-out war if necessary, sources familiar with its thinking say.

Israel, which is waging a war in the Gaza Strip that it says aims to destroy Hamas, has said it has no interest in a conflict on its northern frontier with Lebanon, where it has said so far that seven of its soldiers have been killed.

“I hope we will be able to keep the quiet on this front,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a briefing, adding that he believed Israel’s strong defence forces and their actions in Gaza had deterred Hezbollah till now.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel would unleash devastation on Lebanon if a war did start.