Hezbollah Responds Minimally to Israeli Killing of Radwan Chief

Hezbollah responded with limited rocket and drone fire after Israeli forces killed its Radwan special forces chief on May 6. The group has fired single-digit numbers of rockets and drones toward northern Israel since the end of last week, including multiple times on one day.

Officials had warned of possible major escalation, yet the volume remains far below earlier levels of the conflict. Before the killing, rocket fire into northern Israel had largely stopped for about a month. Hezbollah then escalated with some rockets, but daily attacks have not approached the roughly 100 rockets and drones per day fired in the early weeks of the war or the sometimes couple of hundred per day in fall 2024.

Those earlier barrages also included ballistic missile attacks on Tel Aviv.

The military stated the ceasefire did not apply to Hezbollah fighters remaining in southern Lebanon, leading to the killing of around 100 such fighters in Bint Jbail. Israeli forces have also carried out occasional air or artillery strikes on Hezbollah targets beyond the Litani River when specific units appeared to be preparing rocket launches.

Before the ceasefire, Israeli forces cleared civilians from southern Lebanon and from Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh section of Beirut. This left around 1.1 million Lebanese, mostly Shi’ite supporters of Hezbollah, displaced or in difficult conditions.

Hezbollah is estimated to have 10,000-15,000 rockets remaining, down from 150,000 in 2023 and 20,000-30,000 at the start of the current war. Many of its remaining rockets are short-range and cannot reach Israel now that Israeli forces control southern Lebanon.

The group has also lost over 2,000 fighters since early March while Israeli losses have been far smaller in strategic terms. Hezbollah has continued to threaten northern Israel and in some respects increased its efforts. Israeli forces have reported wounding of soldiers in southern Lebanon on an almost daily basis through Sunday.

It remains unclear whether Hezbollah will treat the strike as ending the ceasefire or will limit its response. So far the group has opted for what one analysis described as a mild escalation. Israel holds southern Lebanon as a bargaining chip and has demonstrated the ability to strike a senior commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs without triggering major strategic retaliation.