US intelligence predicted a brutal, bloody war between Hezbollah and Israel, it was wrong
Israel rapidly shifted the nature of the conflict, surprising the US and itself with its dramatic victory
The surprising collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon earlier this year was even more shocking because it appeared to contradict the intelligence assessments of both the United States and Israeli intelligence communities.
The common assessment of both nation’s intelligence services was that an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah would involve the death of hundreds of soldiers, and possibly thousands of civilians.
U.S. officials began to warn of this threat early in 2024.
“There are fears this will grow to an expansive air campaign reaching much further north into populated areas of Lebanon and eventually grow to a ground component as well,” a source told CNN in late February.
Nevertheless, despite those assessments, Israel began to increase the pressure on Hezbollah. In July, Israel killed Hezbollah’s military commander, Fuad Shukr, in a strike in Beirut, Lebanon. That assassination led Hezbollah to initiate a campaign of drone strikes and larger rocket volleys, sometimes reaching into central Israel. In the two-month period of escalation that followed, 57 Israeli soldiers and 21 civilians were killed.
Because the terror group was reported to have a massive arsenal of over 150,000 unguided rockets, along with approximately 2,000 guided missiles and hundreds – potentially thousands – of drones, the terror group was believed capable of easily overwhelming Israel's effective but limited air defense systems in a full-blown war scenario.
A U.S. official who spoke with The Times of Israel said U.S. assessments “were that this was potentially going to be a catastrophic war that would cause potentially hundreds or thousands of Israeli casualties as Hezbollah missiles overwhelmed Israeli defenses.”
At the same time, Iran threatened a retaliatory strike for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which came just hours after Shukr was eliminated.
Analysts commented on the probing nature of Hezbollah’s volleys towards Israel, claiming that the rocket and drone attacks, which sometimes coincided with one another, were attempts to discover weaknesses in the Israeli system. With several high-profile attacks, it appeared that those assessments were accurate.
The two sides appeared more evenly matched than in the 2006 conflict, and both U.S. and Israeli intelligence assumed the need for a dangerous, costly invasion of Lebanon in order to deal with the missile threats.
Israel’s air superiority in the region was, and remains, uncontested. However, it appeared that Hezbollah had adequately countered that by hiding launchers in heavily forested areas, in homes, and in tunnels, including deep, massive underground launch sites with small, hard-to-find launch exits.
After several months of fighting in Gaza, even with limited casualties, it was assessed that the Israeli public would have little stomach for the months-long conflict needed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Earlier in the year, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the IDF would have difficulty succeeding in such a conflict, due to spreading its resources too broadly in its multi-front conflict with Iranian proxies.
However, what no one expected was Israel’s unconventional strikes to dramatically change the nature of the conflict between the two.
That shift came in September, during the unexpected exploding pager operation, which injured and maimed thousands of high-level Hezbollah military commanders, even successfully killing a handful.
That dramatic operation was followed by a similar operation the next day which saw the explosion of dozens of walkie-talkies. While the results of the second operation were more limited, the psychological impact was clear, Hezbollah forces could no longer trust one of its most secure communication systems.
Only days later, an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed two of Hezbollah’s top commanders and almost the entire command staff of its elite Radwan Unit. In a matter of days, Israel had overturned the perceived strategic landscape and Hezbollah was left staggering.
U.S. officials became increasingly concerned about the possibility of an Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon. The Biden administration began working on a ceasefire proposal to bring an end to the tit-for-tat cross-border strikes between Hezbollah and Israel while sending high-level officials in an attempt to prevent an all-out war from occurring.
Washington’s top-ranking general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, toured the Middle East in August to help coordinate regional efforts with defense leaders in Cairo, Amman and Israel. The U.S. military closely monitored Hezbollah’s activities throughout the war and was convinced the terror group represented a severe threat to Israel’s security. Analysts believed Hezbollah would be able to overwhelm Israel’s air defenses in the event of a full-scale war between the two.
The U.S. was convinced it would have to intervene in order to aid Israel in such a scenario.
“We continue to maintain very frequent and close communication with our Israeli counterparts to understand the nature of the threat to be able to better support any defense should that be required,” Pentagon spokesperson U.S. Air Force Maj.-Gen. Patrick Ryder said in August.
However, the U.S. hoped to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale conflict.
The pager operation indicated that Israel was no longer pursuing a mutual retaliation strategy but had shifted to striking hard at the leadership of Iran’s main proxy group in the region. The fact that Israel gave the U.S. no advance notice of the operation also indicated a growing gap between U.S. and Israeli assessments of and objectives in the conflict.
As Israel began to increase the intensity of the attacks, the U.S. worked to prevent it from spilling into the devastating war that its intelligence predicted.
In fact, the U.S. announced a ceasefire proposal backed by several European allies two days before the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an attempt to prevent what it believed would be a deadly war with heavy civilian casualties on both sides.
At the last minute, Israel withdrew support for the ceasefire, choosing instead to assassinate Nasrallah ahead of a ground campaign into southern Lebanon intended to drive Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River. The IDF then eliminated senior Radwan Force commanders and destroyed significant amounts of Hezbollah infrastructure in a series of airstrikes, throwing the military wing of Hezbollah into confusion.
The failure of the U.S. administration to recalibrate its understanding of the situation was evident even after Israel’s rejection of the ceasefire deal and Nasrallah's assassination.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Israel’s rejection of diplomacy would bring “greater instability and insecurity, the ripples of which will be felt around the world.”
“The choices that all parties make in coming days will determine which path this region is on with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come,” Blinken said.
After the collapse of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and the Israeli ground operation, during which the IDF seized or destroyed Hezbollah weapons and terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon, it became clear that initial U.S. and Israeli assessments had been incorrect.
A senior U.S. official recently told The Times of Israel, “There’s a narrative out there that [Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah] would have happened a lot earlier if the Americans hadn’t applied pressure on Israel and prevented it. That’s not what happened. Everybody was very concerned on both sides about what this would look like and how severe it would be.”
That official’s statement appears to be contradicted by a Washington Post report in January stating that Israel wanted to strike Hezbollah hard in the opening days of the Gaza War, believing that it also had a hand in planning the Oct. 7 attacks. The Post cited a senior administration official saying, “U.S. officials immediately raised objections.”
The official told the Post that an Israeli invasion would result in “all hell breaking loose.”
Another official told The Times that Israeli intelligence was also concerned about a significant civilian cost for the offensive against Hezbollah, but decided the risk was justified.
“Ultimately, they moved forward anyway, but it wasn’t under the assumption that it wouldn’t come at a major cost. The Israelis just believed that this cost was necessary,” the U.S. official said.
Even at the beginning of the year, the IDF, the Defense Ministry, and likely even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already decided that the Hezbollah threat would have to be dealt with.
“As a result of Hezbollah’s aggression, tens of thousands of Israelis were forced to leave their homes. The state of Israel will not return to the prewar status quo in which Hezbollah poses a direct and immediate military threat to its security along the Israel-Lebanon border,” an IDF official said in January 2024.
The Israeli assessment that escalating the conflict with Hezbollah was necessary appears to have been correct, with the northern border remaining quiet for several weeks, and Israel's attention returning to the Gaza Strip and a possible hostage release ceasefire deal to bring the Israeli captives home before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025.
J. Micah Hancock is a current Master’s student at the Hebrew University, pursuing a degree in Jewish History. Previously, he studied Biblical studies and journalism in his B.A. in the United States. He joined All Israel News as a reporter in 2022, and currently lives near Jerusalem with his wife and children.
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