What began as a strategic move to enter Syria’s civil war in 2011 may have inadvertently reshaped Hezbollah’s military focus and preparedness against its primary adversary.

Successful military campaigns in Syria seemed to inflate former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s confidence in his organization’s combat capabilities, a mindset that Professor Mohanad Hage Ali from the Carnegie Center in Beirut tells the Financial Times was apparent in his subsequent public addresses.

“This false sense of military strength was probably based on his Syrian experience, but it overlooked the fatigue impact,” said Hage Ali. “Fighting a war in south Lebanon for 30 to 40 days is one thing. Fighting a war for six to seven years in Syria is something else.”

However, while Hezbollah gained battlefield experience in Syria, the nature of that war differed significantly from potential engagements with Israel. Fighting disparate rebel groups without air power did little to prepare them for the sophisticated military capabilities of Israel.

Crucially, Hezbollah’s deployment of an estimated 10,000 fighters to Syria marked a dramatic shift in resources and attention away from the Israeli front. This created a strategic imbalance, with Israel maintaining its focus on Hezbollah as a top priority while the terror group was distracted by its Syrian campaign.

Some analysts also propose that Hezbollah’s increased regional commitments on behalf of Iran, such as bolstering allied terrorists in Yemen and Iraq, may have resulted in Nasrallah’s cronies straying from their conventional Israel-centric strategy.

With all these past distractions, Hezbollah finds itself extremely vulnerable to Israeli operations, with airstrikes now penetrating deep into its strongholds in southern Beirut without much resistance following the assassination of Nasrallah on Friday.

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