It may take months for the effects of Hezbollah's attacks to become apparent Hezbollah

In 1992, Israeli media celebrated an assassination attempt. The man killed at the time was Abbas al-Musawi, Hezbollah's secretary general, whose convoy was attacked by Israeli helicopters.

Then as now, Israeli analysts speculated that Musawi's death could potentially spell the end of Hezbollah, which had been founded ten years earlier following Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

The opposite would be true. Musawi was succeeded by his 31-year-old protégé Hassan Nasrallah, who led and built Hezbollah for three decades until his own assassination by Israel on Friday.

The killing of Nasrallah in an underground Hezbollah headquarters in a southern suburb of Beirut has inevitably focused attention on two questions: whether Israel's long-term assassination policy is effective and what the killing of Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah commanders means for the group.

The question of the effectiveness of assassinations is a contentious point even within the Israeli security and political establishment, which has long debated the issue, including some current ministers who reportedly opposed Nasrallah's assassination.

Israel has also killed senior members of Hamas in the past, including key founders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, both in 2004, but this did not give the country a long-term strategic advantage over Gaza.

The reality is that it may take months to see what significant impact the campaign to assassinate Hezbollah leaders will have on the group, not least because of Nasrallah's decades-long efforts to establish it as a social entity in Lebanese Shiite society to anchor providers as well as a military force.

While experts believe Hezbollah has been significantly damaged by recent events, many are unsure whether this represents a fatal blow or whether the advantage to Israel on the ground and in terms of diplomatic consequences may be overstated turns out.

Sanam Vakil, the head of Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, has uncovered some of these contradictions.

“Hezbollah is militarily and operationally degraded,” Vakil wrote on

She added: “What should be noted, however, is that both Hezbollah and Hamas, although down, are certainly not out.” Continuing fighting will undoubtedly mobilize, if not radicalize, another generation of fighters. “

Veteran journalist Jack Khoury asked in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz whether the recent attacks would benefit Israel. “This is not the first targeted killing of a Hezbollah leader that Israel has carried out… it quickly became apparent that their successors did not display a more moderate or less militant stance.”

In the short term, it is also clear that the assassination of Nasrallah and the serious attacks of the last few days have not stopped the rocket fire on Israel, even if it has weakened somewhat for the time being.

The reality is that Hezbollah's influence over Israel since the start of the war on October 8, which drove tens of thousands of Israelis from the north, has largely been achieved through a relatively small-scale intervention, rather than Hezbollah's use of heavy weapons and rocket arsenal.

In fact, most of the initial displacements followed small, lighter, sporadic attacks with anti-tank weapons across the border, before the emergence of more sophisticated weapons such as kamikaze drones – a pattern that Israel has found difficult to counter.

And while an aging generation of Hezbollah's leadership – many of them personally tied to Nasrallah – has been removed, it is unclear whether those who replace them will take the same approach in trying to manage the conflict below the threshold of all-out war .

While Nasrallah ultimately failed to achieve this goal, not least because he completely underestimated Israel's calculations, it is not yet clear whether Israel's decision to kill him is necessarily more sensible in the longer term.

It is already clear that one aspect of the Iranian response is to quickly flesh out the idea of ​​Nasrallah as an indispensable “martyr” and “master of resistance” who can remain as the movement's figurehead.

Other experts believe Hezbollah is more resilient than its recent losses suggest.

“Hezbollah is a robust institution with a strong chain of command that should ensure continuity at the leadership level,” wrote Nicholas Blanford, a longtime observer of the group, in a statement for the Atlantic Council.

“An unknown factor, however, is who died alongside Nasrallah in the upper echelons of Hezbollah. If other major leaders were killed, it could complicate – and perhaps delay for a while – the process of restoring command and control over the entire organization, potentially leaving the party vulnerable to Israel's next moves.

“Another pressing question is whether Nasrallah's death will force Iran and Hezbollah to begin using more advanced precision-guided missile systems, potentially far larger compared to the older, unguided missiles the group has previously deployed could cause damage and losses in Israel.” .

“Or will cold rational logic continue to prevail and Tehran ensure that a vengeful and angry Hezbollah does not fall into the trap of a full-force response against Israel? Such a response could lead to a major war that could undermine Hezbollah's capabilities and thereby reduce its deterrent effect on Iran. The coming days will show.”

Immediately after the attack, Anthony Samrani also warned against underestimating the group in an article in the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient Le Jour.

“We know nothing about what is happening within the party, nor anything about the Iranians’ intentions,” he wrote. “Israel carried out thousands of attacks in a week, likely destroying part of Hezbollah's arsenal. But neither the 150,000 missiles and rockets it contains nor the tens of thousands of armed men who make up the militia disappeared in an instant.

“Although it seems more complicated by the day, we cannot rule out that Hezbollah still has the means to respond to its adversary and wage a full-scale and prolonged war. The party is in shock. Can it recover?”

He added: “All scenarios are on the table. That of total war, defeat [Shia] The party will ensure that Lebanon pays for this and of the most fragile opportunity to finally learn the lessons of everything that has brought Lebanon, beyond Hezbollah, to this situation.”