SOUTH LEBANON—Hezbollah has never fought from a position of conventional parity. It has always confronted an enemy with overwhelming technological capacity, vast intelligence resources, and near-limitless Western backing. Yet history established a stubborn truth: despite asymmetry, the Zionist enemy failed repeatedly to convert its intelligence superiority into decisive victory or reoccupation. 

In the previous war, its “comprehensive intelligence advantage” collapsed before the Resistance’s decentralized structure, its concealment tactics, and its ability to adapt faster than any foreign planner expected.

Meanwhile, the struggle enters a new and more perilous chapter—one defined not by deterrence, but by a mutual race to shape the conditions of the next inevitable confrontation. Both the Resistance and the Zionist enemy are engaged in a strategic sprint.

For the enemy, the assassination operations serve one clear objective: to weaken the Resistance before the outbreak of a broader confrontation. This is not simply tactical aggression; it is an attempt to alter the balance of the next war before it begins.

Eliminating key commanders, disrupting coordination networks, and targeting seasoned military veterans reflect an effort to secure a more favorable battlefield. But the Resistance is neither idle nor reactive. Its approach is the opposite of impulsive escalation—it is a strategy of deliberate patience, rebuilding capability brick by brick, adapting its structures. 

Every month that passes gives the Resistance new layers of preparedness: hardened command networks, new-generation fighters, deeper missile stocks, improved air-defense components, and evolving battlefield algorithms.

This timeline is precisely why the enemy is “eager” for war. It seeks to cut short the Resistance’s rebuilding process and act before U.S. midterm elections in April—a moment that may produce shifts in Washington’s political landscape.

If a portion of Congress sees political value in revisiting unconditional support for Tel Aviv, even symbolically, this would represent a historic shift in the American consensus. The Zionist establishment cannot risk entering a war while its strategic patron is distracted, divided, or less coherent in its support.

The Resistance is paying a heavy price—martyrs, commanders, infrastructure, and nonstop political pressure. But this sacrifice is not aimless. It is part of a calculated exchange intended to impose a far greater cost on the enemy in the future. The Resistance seeks two intertwined goals:
1) To reshape the battlefield so the eventual confrontation yields the best possible outcome;
2) To ensure the enemy pays for each phase of aggression—not symbolically but strategically.

This is not a phase of mere balance-building. It is the preparation for a decisive curb of Zionist expansion, which has pushed deeper and faster in recent years than at any other moment since 1982.

Obviously, West Asia is now in what can only be described as a historic turning point—one where deterrence alone is insufficient. The Resistance is preparing for a confrontation that may not remain limited to Lebanon’s southern frontier.

Should the enemy miscalculate, the war could escalate into a regional, existential confrontation involving multiple fronts.

Add to this the evolving security environment: the old era of infiltration and slow intelligence gathering is over. The battlefield is now digitized. 

Artificial intelligence engines analyze real-time indicators, and a single misstep—a heat signature, a communication anomaly, a supply pattern—can expose a target within minutes. In this new era, both sides operate under the constant threat of algorithmic detection.

One of the enemy’s greatest misconceptions has always been the assumption that assassinating leaders would cripple the Resistance!

This belief guided the enemy in the previous war when it targeted a group of seasoned commanders, believing the organization would collapse into chaos. But the Resistance not only survived—it adapted.

Learning from that experience, it has now prepared its leadership dozens of layers deep. For every commander, there is a fully trained replacement. For every operational unit, there is a parallel structure capable of assuming command with no delay. 

What the enemy once saw as a fatal blow is now merely a tactical disturbance. Assassination temporarily disrupts, but it does not dismantle. This is why the enemy now finds itself confronting a new generation of commanders— younger, hardened, more technologically professional, and battle-proven. 

During the last battle, the enemy quietly assessed some of these emerging leaders and realized that killing one generation had simply paved the way for another that is sharper, more adaptive, and more difficult to predict. The cycle of replacement is faster than the cycle of targeting.

Today, Lebanon is living through the “war before the war”—a phase in which every assassination, every intelligence leak, every political maneuver, and every month gained or lost shapes the battlefield of the coming confrontation.

The Resistance knows what is coming. So does the Zionist enemy. One side seeks to buy time; the other seeks to steal it. And when the moment finally arrives, it will not be a limited skirmish. It will be a decisive, history-shaping war—one whose outcome will determine whether Western hegemony continues its long grip on the region, or whether a new balance emerges, anchored not in foreign power but in the will of its people.