Hezbollah views Israel’s shift away from disarming the group as a strategic win, believing that the Israeli climbdown will benefit its survival and influence in Lebanon.

Hezbollah appears to be keenly listening to recent Israeli reports that indicate the Israel Defense Forces will not be able to disarm the Iranian-backed terrorist group. The reports appeared in Israeli media on April 3 and have continued to percolate over the weekend. Hezbollah supporters say the group stands on the “threshold of a new phase,” according to a new report in the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar media in Lebanon.

Hezbollah believes that reports of Israel’s shifting plan in southern Lebanon could work in its favor. The group was battered in September and October 2024 when Israel struck its leaders and carried out a limited ground invasion. However, Israel’s new tactic of slow, systematic advances enables groups like Hezbollah to evacuate areas and move. Hamas did the same in Gaza, moving with the Gazan population of two million throughout the war. Hamas survived the war and continues to control Gaza. Hezbollah has done the same.

The Hezbollah plan since November 2024, when there was a ceasefire, was to weather the continued Israeli strikes. When Israel responded to Hezbollah fire on March 2 with a large planned offensive, Hezbollah had decided to weather the storm again. Its current plan is to keep up the rocket and drone fire on northern Israel. Meanwhile, Hezbollah apparently thinks it will benefit from Israel forcing around 1 million people to flee southern Lebanon. These are mostly Shi’ites, and now Hezbollah can hide among them in other areas of Lebanon.

Israel’s current tactic in Gaza and Lebanon is to remove the civilian population and create “buffer” areas. The result is that the terrorist groups also move with the civilians. Instead of separating the terrorist group from the civilians and isolating the group, this has the effect of cementing the group in power. In Gaza, this happened, and Hezbollah is gambling on the same in Lebanon.

Al-Akhbar says, “the enemy army admits: Disarming Hezbollah is ‘impossible.’” Disarmament was always going to be difficult. It usually requires a political process alongside collecting weapons. It is not clear if removing 1 million Lebanese north of the Litani and moving Hezbollah north as well will result in the desired pressure from the Lebanese government to disarm the group. Hezbollah clearly thinks that it will not have to disarm.

“The Israeli occupation army admitted that disarming Hezbollah under the current circumstances is not possible and is no longer the goal of the war, and that what is required is to keep the party away from the borders to a depth of about 4 km, according to what was reported by the Israeli enemy army radio,” Al-Akhbar says.

Israel repeating past failures?

According to the reports, Hezbollah members of parliament in Lebanon believe that if Israel creates a new zone of control in southern Lebanon, it will be repeating the failures of the Israeli security zone from 1982 to 2000. In that zone, the IDF suffered continued casualties. In those days, the IDF operated among Lebanese civilians and had a partner force in southern Lebanon called the SLA.

Today, Israel has no partners in Lebanon and removing all the civilians has made sure there will be no partners. Israeli officials have said they will raze the villages in southern Lebanon, similar to what was done in Gaza. This will clearly not lead to any support among Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah will use this in its propaganda.

Hezbollah thrived in Lebanon and grew due to the Israeli security zone of the 1980s. The group was initially small, and many Shi’ites actually supported Israel when Israel first invaded southern Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. Hezbollah was able to use the long Israeli rule in Lebanon to turn people against Israel. As such, Hezbollah views its own success as deeply linked to Israel’s policy.

It appears to believe that another long-term Israeli occupation of Lebanon will benefit Hezbollah. It remains to be seen if this is the case. There is also concern that Lebanon could become more chaotic and collapse due to the pressures of having a million displaced people in an already cash-strapped country. Hezbollah hopes to feed off this chaos the way Iranian-backed groups have fed off chaos in the region for decades.

This optimistic message that pro-Hezbollah media is pushing could be wrong in the future. It’s possible that it is putting on a brave face, and the group will suffer funding problems and also weapon supply problems as Iran is weakened. It’s not clear what will come next, yet.