Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday capped off an elaborate, coordinated effort to dismember the Iran-backed terrorist group’s leadership in recent weeks. Yet Israel has not fully eliminated the threat of the Iran-backed terror group, and the possibility of a higher-intensity war in Lebanon remains, with questions as to whether the organization can regroup and if Tehran will get more involved following the weakening of the crown jewel of its proxies.

Joe Truzman, an expert on Iranian proxies at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider that the leaders of Israel, the U.S. and others in the region likely fear that, in response to Israel’s gains on Hezbollah, Iran may instruct its proxies including Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iraqi militias to scale up the intensity of their attacks throughout the region.

“The U.S. and its allies are likely concerned that Iran’s proxies may initiate attacks on neighboring countries, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to coerce Israel into halting its offensives in Gaza and Lebanon,” he said. “Initially, this might manifest through online threats from Iranian-backed Iraqi militias against targets in the UAE or Jordan. Such intimidation could escalate into actual attacks with drones or long-range missiles launched at these nations. From that point, the situation could quickly spiral out of control.”

Iran is weighing the costs and benefits of a direct attack on Israel and its intentions remain unclear, Sarit Zehavi and Tal Beeri, respectively the president and director of research at the Alma Research and Education Center, wrote in an analysis. 

“The Iranians understand that their main investment in recent decades is falling apart in terms of its status and ability to pose a strategic threat to Israel. Therefore, at this time they will not want to place additional capabilities under threat,” they said.

Zehavi and Beeri also suggested that Israel will need to continue airstrikes in Lebanon in the short term, and depending on their effectiveness, there may be a complementary limited ground invasion “to physically and optimally cleanse parts of the border from infrastructure and terrorist operatives.” The IDF called up two brigades made up of thousands of reservists in recent days. 

Zehavi and Beeri emphasized that a diplomatic agreement with an effective mechanism to demilitarize southern Lebanon is inevitable, as the only way to avoid Israel reestablishing the buffer zone that it maintained in the area until 2000.

They also warned that Lebanon could deteriorate into another civil war, with other population groups, particularly Lebanese Christians, viewing Hezbollah’s weakness as an opportunity.

Truzman called this a “pivotal moment” in which the U.S. should provide Israel “with all the comprehensive support it needs to defeat Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s other forces in the region … and work together to counter the forces that seek the destruction of both Israel and the U.S.”

Rebuilding Hezbollah’s leadership will not be an easy task, as Nasrallah led the terrorist group for 32 years and was venerated within its ranks. 

Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, wrote that “while it’s true that anyone can be replaced, it’s unlikely at the level and caliber of Nasrallah.” The Hezbollah leader was “a charismatic leader, a skilled politician and widely admired by Shiites and Israel’s opponents,” who was credited with Israel’s retreat from southern Lebanon in 2000 and a “divine victory” in the 2006 war.

Nasrallah was untrusting and intolerant of any dissent, and made many decisions alone, cultivating his image as the leader accepted by all Shiites while refusing to name or train an heir, according to Zehavi and Beeri. 

“The vacuum left in [Nasrallah’s] wake upends all the understandings and equations established regarding Hezbollah,” Valensi wrote. 

Hezbollah is in disarray, suffering a blow that is severe and may be fatal, Valensi said: “There is no clear command and control system in place, no directive, and significant operational and tactical difficulties remain.”

By striking at Hezbollah’s strategic missile array and its leadership, the IDF seems to be trying to turn Hezbollah “back from an army to a guerrilla organization” that no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel, Zehavi and Beeri wrote. 

Even if Israel damaged 50% of Hezbollah’s missile array, as some estimate, tens of thousands of projectiles remain in the arsenal the group has been building for decades. In addition, Hezbollah has as many as 50,000 operatives and an additional 50,000 in reserves that are loyal to an extremist Islamic ideology, Zehavi and Beeri pointed out.

Iran is likely already trying to rehabilitate Hezbollah and may play an even more significant role in the terrorist group than it did in the past, Truzman said.

“Israel’s actions over the past week have starkly illustrated that Hezbollah is struggling to protect its leadership and esteemed military commanders,” Truzman said. “This has caused instability inside Hezbollah, and it poses a strategic challenge for its patron, Iran.”

Tehran viewed the looming threat of Hezbollah, with its over 100,000 missiles – nearly 10,000 of which were shot at Israel in the past year – to Israel “as a crucial safeguard against potential Israeli strikes on [Iran’s] nuclear facilities,” Truzman said.

As such, Tehran will likely emphasize the urgent rehabilitation of Hezbollah, with a focus on securing the Lebanon-based terrorist groups’ remaining leaders and investigating how Israel was able to penetrate the militia, he said.

Zehavi and Beeri posited that, following the severe damage inflicted on Hezbollah, Israel attacking border crossings through which Iran transferred weapons into Lebanon, and warning against Iranian planes landing in Beirut airport, Iran might seek “to invest in other projects that are already thriving — the Houthis in Yemen and Iran’s entrenchment in Syria.”