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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/shifting-to-guerilla-warfare-hezbollah-delivers-massive-blows-to-israel/">palestinechronicle.com</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Shifting to Guerilla Warfare, Hezbollah Delivers Massive Blows to Israel</h1>April 22, 2026</div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Hezbolah_Stella-maris_video.png" alt="" title="Hezbolah_Stella maris_video" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="558" height="374" style="margin-right: 25px;">
Hezbollah releases footage of strikes deep inside Israel as operations intensify. (Photo: video grab)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/robert-inlakesh" title="Display all articles for Robert Inlakesh">Robert Inlakesh</a></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>All along, this was precisely the scenario that Hezbollah had
hoped for, to rope the Israelis in on the ground, in order to eventually
inflict enormous losses on them.</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Hezbollah has shifted to waging a guerrilla war against the
Israeli occupiers in southern Lebanon, reminding Tel Aviv why it decided
to withdraw from the country in the year 2000. Instead of allowing
Israel to violate the ceasefire unchecked, the responses have been
immediate and painful.</span></p>
<p><span>On April 16, the White House declared that a 10-Day temporary
ceasefire had been reached between Lebanon and Israel. Only the day
prior, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense
Minister Israel Katz had delivered speeches claiming that their
operations in the south of Lebanon would continue to expand. </span></p>
<p>This caused immense frustration amongst the Israeli public and sparked backlash in the Hebrew-language media.</p>
<p><span>Sure enough, when the ceasefire went into effect, the Israelis
decided to violate the agreement at least 10 times within an hour,
mainly through artillery fire on Lebanese villages in the south. This
was followed by two drone strikes targeting vehicles in southern
Lebanon, in addition to an attack on an ambulance.</span></p>
<p><span>Israeli Arabic spokesperson Avrechay Adraee, who was supposed
to have retired, yet has made a recent return, openly released a video
message ordering displaced Lebanese civilians not to return south of the
Litani River area. The occupation forces even bombed the area where
efforts were being made to reconstruct a temporary bridge that had been
deliberately destroyed during the war to prevent civilian passage into
the south.</span></p>
<p><span>For a period of time, it had been feared that a return to the
pre-March \u201cceasefire\u201d in Lebanon had just been secured in favor of Tel
Aviv once again, where the Israelis carried out frequent operations
without any response. All of this as Israel was now occupying more
territory illegally, as the Lebanese government negotiated for a
normalisation agreement.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, then delivered
an address, during which he made it clear that the Lebanese leadership
was behaving unacceptably and betraying their duties through their
normalizing efforts. He also insisted that the previous status quo would
not return and that instead his organization would respond to the
Israeli violations, fighting until the occupation of South Lebanon was
totally abandoned.</span></p>
<p><span>Little more than a day into the ceasefire agreement, despite no
announcements of retaliatory actions from Hezbollah, a series of
\u201csecurity incidents\u201d were announced by the Israeli Army. The first few
were said to have been tanks running over previously planted explosives,
making it appear as if the incidents had occurred by accident.</span></p>
<p><span>However, three major \u201csecurity events\u201d occurred, inflicting at
least 37 Israeli casualties, 2 of whom the Israelis admitted were
deaths. At this point, it had become clear that something else was going
on.</span></p>
<p><span>Then came an official Hezbollah statement, claiming
responsibility for a single incident, where 4 Israeli Merkava tanks were
said to have been completely destroyed by pre-planted IEDs, detonating
them on an enemy convoy, after Lebanese fighters had been monitoring
their movements. After this, the Israeli military decided not to publish
any details on the IED attacks.</span></p>
<p><span>Yet, Israeli media commentary explained that soldiers,
stationed in what is being called a \u201cbuffer zone\u201d in southern Lebanon,
have reported their frustrations over Hezbollah drones monitoring their
movements. </span></p>
<p><span>In other words, Hezbollah has cells throughout the territory
that Israel claims to be in control of, who do reconnaissance, then
calculate the movements of Israeli forces, anticipating their common
routes, before planting IEDs that they then detonate on convoys.</span></p>
<p>Not only is this a transition to asymmetric warfare, which the Iraqi
resistance became well known for when fighting an insurgency against US
occupying forces, but it is also beginning to usher in flashbacks to the
days of the occupation in South Lebanon.</p>
<p><span>As an example, in 1997, Hezbollah had managed to pull off what
was known as the Ansariyeh Ambush, killing 12 Israeli special forces
soldiers from its elite Shayetet 13 Unit. This had been carried out
through reconnaissance and intelligence work, to anticipate the arrival
of the Israeli unit, a total disaster for the Israeli military at the
time.</span></p>
<p><span>Today, Hezbollah has advanced from what it was in the 1990s and
possesses much more sophisticated and powerful weapons. What it means
for Israeli forces on the ground is that they must constantly keep
moving, as they remain under surveillance and could be subjected to an
ambush at any time.</span></p>
<p><span>When Israeli tanks travel down roads they have taken a number
of times previously, they could suddenly face a series of EIDs. The more
these attacks happen, the more terrified the Israeli conscript army\u2019s
soldiers become, fearing the possibility that they could at any moment
lose an arm, leg, or their life.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah, having shifted to such tactics, could also seek to
capture Israeli soldiers at one point, something that would represent a
catastrophe for the Israeli political leadership. </span></p>
<p><span>If such a capture operation succeeds, then Netanyahu\u2019s campaign
of triumph will be suddenly transformed into yet another costly
operation that will inevitably accelerate on the ground, while
eventually forcing him to commit to a prisoner exchange.</span></p>
<p><span>All along, this was precisely the scenario that Hezbollah had
hoped for, to rope the Israelis in on the ground, in order to eventually
inflict enormous losses on them and fulfill the pledge of its former
leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah that the south will become a graveyard
for the invading army and that they will eventually have no tanks left.</span></p>
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<p><br></p>
<p><span><em>\u2013 Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary
filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He
contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. </em></span></p></div>
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