In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Orna Mizrahi about where things stand a year after the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, examining Hezbollah’s military recovery, the evolving Iranian role, the state of Lebanon’s political leadership, and whether a renewed round of conflict is becoming more likely.
Orna Mizrahi served for 26 years in the IDF, including as an intelligence analyst and as a senior officer in the Strategic Planning Division. She later spent twelve years at Israel’s National Security Council, culminating in her role as Deputy National Security Adviser. She now focuses on Israel–Lebanon dynamics, Hezbollah, and regional strategy at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:07:01 – 00:00:29:19
Hello and welcome to the BICOM Podcast. I’m Richard Pater, the Director of BICOM. And today is the 27th of November, marking exactly a year since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. To discuss where we stand. A year on, I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast Orna Mizrahi. Thank you very much indeed for joining me today.
00:00:29:21 – 00:01:00:14
Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. So, open up for a way of introduction. Is one of Israel’s leading experts on the Lebanese arena. She has she’s now there, a senior researcher at the excellent INSS Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. But before that, she had a long and distinguished career in the Israeli security establishment, serving 26 years in the IDF, including as an intelligence analyst in the research division and as a senior officer in the Strategic Planning Division.
00:01:00:16 – 00:01:23:19
She then spent 12 years in the National Security Council, culminating in being the National, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Foreign Policy in the Prime Minister’s Office. So, Orna, if we could start, perhaps and as I said at the beginning, a kind of a year on from the ceasefire, how would you compare Hezbollah’s military strength now and then from a year ago?
00:01:23:21 – 00:01:55:15
Okay. We have to look at, the situation in Hezbollah. What it was comparing what it was two years ago before the war. And then what is going on, along this last a year. So, before the war, of course, we all know the situation, but life was very mighty, a threatening, force. And following the war, immediately after the war, he was weak, beaten, and, and decided about what he’s going to do.
00:01:55:17 – 00:02:23:15
But after a few months and they recovered and renewed their effort, and focusing really on rehabilitation. I must say that they’re doing a lot and they are achieving a lot, although they are under the daily, very constant, attacks of, of the IDF and since the beginning of the, of this is very agreement.
00:02:23:17 – 00:03:06:18
We should just clarify that those attacks by the IDF are within the provisions of the ceasefire agreement. Yeah. Of course. You know, there is dispute about what the IDF is going every and every side has its own, aspect. Israel is talking about enforcing the, the, the agreement and, every time we see, an effect, it comes because the, the IDF sees, if I allow a violation of, of, and the articles of the agreement, if from the side of his, when they see, an activist, a terrorist in the areas that they’re not supposed to be in the south of Lebanon, or when they see them collecting
00:03:06:18 – 00:03:38:03
arms or trying to renew places that they were hiding their arms over, storages, etc. So, the IDF is attacking. So, from the side of Israel, it’s, enforcing the agreement, but from the side of, of Lebanon and Hezbollah, they are talking about violating of the agreement by Israel. And of course, according to what we understand, this is not the case.
00:03:38:05 – 00:04:18:23
You know, just maybe I’ll, I’ll say that, since the, the beginning of the ceasefire, since last year, according to IDF, that, 350 Hezbollah, operatives have been eliminated, following the loss of, 4500 operatives during the war. So, you see, they have a lot of losses, but that does not, discourage them of continuing and focusing on, the rehabilitation of the organization and, gaining, again the military capabilities.
00:04:19:00 – 00:04:45:15
When we say 350 of their fighters killed. I understand, about 50% of them are our commanders. They have a force of tens of thousands. Or. Exactly how would you assess the kind of their current, force, strength? The problem is that they still have thousands of operatives, and they have still they have the military capability.
00:04:45:17 – 00:05:09:09
Even if it’s limited than what we have seen before. Still, they have their capabilities. You know, we were talking about, 150,000. Of course it was. Is not the exact number of missiles and rockets that they have before the war. Nowadays, the number that it’s again, it’s not accurate, but it’s something like around 20,000, rockets and missiles.
00:05:09:09 – 00:05:35:22
So, it’s not, it’s enough to, to retaliate and to threaten the, the Israeli, interests, everywhere, close to the border in the in the war inside the, the home front of Israel. But that was going to be my next question. I mean, how much is it a threat, first of all, to the to the current, to the communities close to the border.
00:05:36:02 – 00:06:09:07
How much do you think they feel? The, the threat today, is still is still relevant here in Israel. We are talking about the security and the feeling of security in the sense of security to the to the communities, because it’s not always the same. And when we are talking about, security, for sure, the threat that, Hezbollah poses possess today, it reduced and, but it still exists.
00:06:09:09 – 00:06:37:24
It’s more limited, but it still exists. The main change stems from the fact that the IDF eliminated the capability for a ground operation by armed forces and to invade Israel. And, actually the IDF now, holds five, strategic points along the borders, very close to the to the communities, the Israeli communities that are very close to the border.
00:06:38:00 – 00:07:08:03
Mitchell. Mona. And these are strategic points that the IDF, holds. And they are the destroyed villages along the border on the Lebanese sides. And so, the, the let’s say that the feasible operative cannot come very close to the Israeli border. And now the, ability to do something, you know, on the ground is very, very limited.
00:07:08:05 – 00:07:32:07
But as I said, they still have the capabilities when it comes to, shelling rockets or missiles. You mentioned before, kind of within the framework of the rehabilitation of the, of Hezbollah fighting forces is also the smuggling of weapons, which is continued. Is it being it just Iran is the sole source of their of their smuggling, or are they get their supplies from anyone else?
00:07:32:09 – 00:08:05:03
Well, Iran is the main source of, of the for money in the, in the weaponry and they help them a lot. You know, according to the information that we have, we had a few weeks ago, it was published by the Department of Treasury, of U.S. Treasury Department. They told that Iran it transferred in the last year approximately $1 billion to the organization.
00:08:05:05 – 00:08:48:02
And so you can see, although Iran is in a very bad condition, they still find the money in the time to be focused on, helping in the, in recovering issues. But it’s very important for them. And I think even that the influence of Iran during this period, increased because, you know, before we had masala, masala was very dominant and, and could stand, and, and say is what he thinks about the Iranian requests and even influence the onion, strategy when it comes to what do to do with this.
00:08:48:02 – 00:09:12:13
Well, but nowadays there is no one that in, in the, the, in his blood that can, that can do that. So, the influence of Iran is, greater. And, you know, the last acting chief of staff that the Israeli let me know a few days ago was very much connected to the to the Iranians.
00:09:12:13 – 00:09:20:24
So the Iranians is a very important part in a recovery, the recovery process of, Hezbollah.
00:09:21:01 – 00:09:25:00
Hezbollah, managed to locate a new smuggling routes.
00:09:25:00 – 00:09:58:17
Even from Syria. They have the, the smuggling, they’re smuggling drugs. They have the, laundering, processes of, of money through companies in Africa and other places and even in the, in Lebanon, they have, factories and places that they can in name a money so they can do it by themselves. They even develop some, weaponry.
00:09:58:19 – 00:10:31:02
They have very little factories to develop weaponry in, in, Lebanon. So it’s very interesting that you mentioned kind of the smuggling across the Syrian border, because there was obviously hope that when Assad fell that the kind of the land corridor between Iran that connected, Lebanon, Hezbollah to Iran would have broken. But you you’re of the, the opinion or the understanding that, that that border, the Lebanon, Syria border is still there, still able to how are they able to use that border still?
00:10:31:03 – 00:10:56:23
What’s the response on the on the Syrian side? Look, Richard, it’s a very long border. It’s a border of something like three, hundred 50 and more kilometres. Changing along the way. So And there are tribes that helps them. There are tribes that this is the, resource of income. This is what they are doing.
00:10:56:23 – 00:11:23:01
They’re smuggling. Now, when the and the new regime in Syria cannot stop everything we know about few smuggling attempts that they were, they have a caught. But it’s not all of them. So they insist in continuing the smuggling and they find new ways along the border. To do so with the help of this, tribes.
00:11:23:01 – 00:11:54:02
And then they succeed in it. So, it’s not stopped yet. Completely. They still doing it through the Syrian, border. Although the new regime is against feasible the new against Hezbollah because Hezbollah was the one that was fighting together with the Assad regime against them. But they cannot stop all this smuggling a project of feasible, the enormous smuggling project of Hezbollah, even through Syria.
00:11:54:02 – 00:12:25:12
And they have new ways from, flights from Iraq and Sudan, by sea, not just to the, Beirut port because the now the in Beirut for the, the, Lebanese, the, security forces, trying to stop it, but so they are doing through the Tripoli ports, the all the time to find new ways of doing it.
00:12:25:14 – 00:12:54:06
And I mean, I remember in the, in the past, the IDF had showed evidence that there were very sophisticated tunnels between the, the Syrian Lebanese border. Are you confident that the IDF have destroyed those tunnels? Or is that also still a, a route? I’m sure that there are still a ways there are still tunnels on that, and on the border and the if, the IDF destroyed some of them, I suppose that they have now new ones.
00:12:54:06 – 00:13:28:15
So it’s very complicated to stop it from there that way. And as I said before, they can also do it, you know, on the ground they don’t need the tunnels. There are so many, places they can do it along this very long border. And they do it. And within the provisions of the ceasefire agreement, the, the IDF have kind of have also had permission to stop these tunnels or the sorry stop the smuggling routes, or is that, is that a weakness in the agreement?
00:13:28:17 – 00:13:55:02
There is nothing about what’s going on between, Syria and Lebanon. It’s more about what’s going on in Lebanon, you know, especially in the south of, Lebanon. And you’re right, because, I think one important thing that is well achieved in this agreement was that Israel, preserves its, freedom of action against violation of feasible.
00:13:55:04 – 00:14:26:06
And this, these allows the IDF to do what they are doing today to continue the attacks and, on the on Hezbollah activists and, you know, in the play in targets, mostly on in the south of Lebanon and also in other places in, in Lebanon. And the other distinction, I understand from the from this latest, agreement that, there’s now a year old is this really, the US and CENTCOM that are the arbitrators instead of the, the UN?
00:14:26:10 – 00:14:47:06
What? I mean, we understand that the UNIFIL mission is going to be coming to a close in the next in the next few months. Are they are they operating at all at the moment? What’s the status of UNIFIL at the moment? They are. UNIFIL is still, operating in, in the south of Lebanon, together with the left, with the Lebanese Army.
00:14:47:08 – 00:15:21:01
But they they’re not doing the work. They are not doing. What is the I would want them to do or what is needed to do according to the 1701 United Nations security Council resolution. The main the main article was talking about the fact that the there will be no, no other than UNIFIL and the Lebanese army and, no other military, force, meaning no Hezbollah.
00:15:21:03 – 00:16:11:20
In the south of Lebanon and the they are trying to do to do some work on it, but it’s not enough. And actually sometimes there are problems for Israel because the, interfering to the IDF to do what is needed to do sometimes the, transfer information to the IDF gives, the five party committee, this five party committee of enforcing the agreement that is led by, and, I mean, we can call it, general, the, the, the information that the IDF is transferring to this committee and to the Union and UNIFIL is in this committee, as well as the, the Lebanese, goes to Hezbollah and,
00:16:11:22 – 00:16:39:10
when, and the Hezbollah and activists disappear and so, and then come again another time. So they are not so useful as they, as they weren’t in, in, in the past also, and, and really the five party, committee led by the, the American general is very useful for Israel. The Americans are very useful.
00:16:39:10 – 00:17:11:08
The American role now in Lebanon is, very, important. And, I think there is an understanding, they understand the needs of, of, of Israel and what the IDF is doing. And, as you see in the last, action of eliminating the acting chief of staff, they were talking about the fact that it was needed, to do and supported, the, this operation.
00:17:11:10 – 00:17:32:09
So just on the assassination of the of the chief of staff, I mean, I’ve seen in the reports in the Israeli media the kind of the that said he was targeted specifically because he was one of the, if not the leader that was trying to encourage Hezbollah to increase their, their military, build up and, and go for confrontations with the IDF.
00:17:32:15 – 00:17:48:05
Is there are there divisions within the Hezbollah leadership now that he’s been, he’s been eliminated? Is there a hope that, they could be they could be forced into changing into submission? Or is that, unrealistic?
00:17:48:07 – 00:18:23:13
As you say, it was very important. And this is why was the eliminated? Because it was the one that was leading the, reconstruction and, well, organization of the office along the last, a year. Now, about a replacement to this, men, it is difficult to know, but that but I must say that there are still several members of the veteran officers who could, replace him and that, of course, not known to the general public.
00:18:23:13 – 00:19:02:06
So, giving the name wouldn’t help us. What is the leader of the fighting forces in the south of Lebanon? They are responsible for all the smuggling operation and activities abroad. So, there are people that can replace. There are few that, that have the ability to do so. But, you know, as in every organization, young people who step in and, you know, we have now in, the joke here about the fact that, the best place to get promotion nowadays, Isabela is right.
00:19:02:08 – 00:19:29:21
Yes. So, and, I suppose that they can find someone. The Iranian will take care of it. Then they will try to do it will be someone that can work with them. Is. But he was one. It’s such a it’s such a, man, that was a, in a very good connections with the Iranians.
00:19:29:21 – 00:20:02:16
You know, his father was the Iranian. His mother was Lebanese. His name is Iranian. And, and I think that this was the reason why he, he was nominated to, to do so. Well, together with the fact that he was, he had the capabilities of doing it, do you think because kind of his the, the track record for staying in that role of chief of staff is such a, a, what’s the word?
00:20:02:18 – 00:20:31:05
A difficult kind of a challenging position because of the you’ll become straight a target by the IDF. It does that, limit motivation to take that job, or is there still motivation? High? The motivation is high. They are still holding the very extreme ideology there. Still want, they are not changing the, the, vision of eliminating Israel and fighting the West.
00:20:31:07 – 00:20:57:00
So, Hezbollah didn’t change the ideologies and the people, a religious people that want to do that. And the some have the experience and they, capability to do, to do that. So I think they can they can find someone. But what they do is that they are keeping their, their activity very secretly.
00:20:57:02 – 00:21:30:11
They’re trying not to expose who, you know, I think not very much. Not very much is known about what is going on in Hezbollah nowadays. When you ask experts about issues. But I will say, I don’t know so much nowadays because they are very secretive about what they are doing. And, you know, I think that most of the people didn’t know, the, the by the such a very high, role in, in, in Hezbollah.
00:21:30:13 – 00:21:56:14
Till is this so, it’s very difficult to, to, you know, to track what is going exactly nowadays. In Hezbollah. But I think that they it is really intelligence is some success. As we have seen, in this, elimination, no doubt. Just to, to turn to the, the Lebanese political leadership.
00:21:56:14 – 00:22:26:07
What’s your current assessment, of where they are and kind of their, their attitude towards, towards Israel and Hezbollah? Well, look, it’s a very encouraging that this leadership is different than the leaderships that the Lebanon had before because, they are against Hezbollah. They are not corrupted. The, the, the president is one that was grown in the army, Christian.
00:22:26:09 – 00:22:58:13
And the prime minister that is a Sunni, is and was that was the judge in the, in the ICJ. So in, in these really, a very focused in repairing Lebanon and bringing Lebanon to be, again, a sovereign states in both has a this vision of this army is villa and collecting all the, the arms, the weapons of the militias in Lebanon.
00:22:58:15 – 00:23:26:11
And really they are trying to do it, but they are quite weak and they don’t have so much success, in it. And then I think it because the two main reasons, the first one is the weakness of, the Lebanese army, which is neither capable or not nor and I’m not sure so much so that they want, in, to do that.
00:23:26:11 – 00:24:06:09
And for sure they don’t want to confront, Hezbollah because Hezbollah still holds the power of power of deterrence. And the leaderships and the other reason is the fact that the leadership feels of a civil war, that the Hezbollah constantly, threatens, and say that they want to avoid civil war. And by that, they’re threatening that this is a possibility, that they will use the, their weapons against, their opponents inside Lebanon and create a new, civil war.
00:24:06:11 – 00:24:39:22
And again, this is part of the power of deterrence, deterrence powers vis a with this, new, leadership. So there is, you know, there is, quite, it’s encouraging that that we have this we have someone to the to share with the, with the other with Israel. And, I think with the, with the, the vision of disarming Hezbollah and having a peaceful and secure Lebanon.
00:24:39:24 – 00:25:01:24
But they still lack the, the, the, the ability or the will to do so. And, and the by extension, the we mentioned before, the LAF, the Lebanese Armed Forces, I mean, once you and you, you share the disappointment that they haven’t been able to, to do more to disarm Hamas, how would you rate their efforts over the last year?
00:25:02:01 – 00:25:25:24
It you see, they don’t have the capabilities because, in Israel, the Israeli, IDF is superior on the Hezbollah base, military capabilities, but feasible is stronger, comparing to the left and the left that don’t have the capabilities that feasible has,
00:25:26:01 – 00:25:31:05
and they don’t want to, to confront Hezbollah.
00:25:31:09 – 00:25:48:20
There was a very disturbing report in the Israeli media this week that suggested the rate Hezbollah of rearming is faster than the rate that is, that Israel is kind of responding to try and stop them in that case, is another clash inevitable? Do you think there’s going to be a new round of war?
00:25:48:22 – 00:26:31:15
Well, this is the 1 million question of if we are going to have another war. And so I’ll try to answer that. Let let’s first look at the what what’s going on with the feasible is as I understand it, they have a range of a response possibilities. And we are it can we, we can being the, point that they will decide that they are changing the current strategy, the current certainty of containing and not retaliating, what the IDF is doing and focusing in the, in the, rehabilitation of the organization.
00:26:31:15 – 00:27:01:20
This is what they are doing and rebuilding the military capabilities. And so, as I said, they have a range of possibility, like striking the IDF forces at the five point that are still holding in Lebanese territory, launching rockets in north Venezuela, over in the fluctuation of square into Israeli territory, deeper missile fired into the Israeli real, or a terror operation against Israeli targets abroad.
00:27:02:00 – 00:27:48:00
Maybe this is more possible. And nowadays, or attacks by initiated by the feasible is ex partners like the Houthis, the Palestinian elements in Lebanon. Oh, the Iraqi militias. But, it can be assessed that, in its current difficult situation, Hezbollah under the new secretary general named Kassem, who is now, not, highly, regarded, will try not to be involved in another what a wide range in round of fighting with Israel.
00:27:48:02 – 00:28:38:09
And, you know, there are now voices in Israel calling to a response that will be, this proportionate. So, I think they, they are quite, afraid of, of, that. So I think they really, prefer to delay the response or to initiate limited or, symbolic, action. And if we are talking about the possibility of a wide range, conflict more with wide conflict, there is the chance that Israel will be the one that will seek to expand the campaign, due to the developing threat, according to what you have said, that the speed of the recoveries, is the more, efficient than what?
00:28:38:11 – 00:29:32:01
If it’s doing, so, I think that there is the possibility that, you know, on the Israeli side, if the, if the, the, the threat will be will be developed, they will the, the IDF will decide to do something, I suppose that it wouldn’t happen, before the pope’s, visit to Lebanon in the, in the next, week is going to be in Lebanon on the 30th, November 30th, and maybe not till the end of this year that the this is the time that the, the left was supposed to finish, the, the cleaning, let’s say, of the south of Lebanon from the Hezbollah presence.
00:29:32:03 – 00:29:59:08
But it can happen. And, and it can be surprising, I think it wouldn’t be so long and may be, a few days of battle and more intensive attacks. But this is, there is the possibility that it will be to it will happen, by the an initiative by initiative from, from Israel.
00:29:59:10 – 00:30:15:00
Only if I may. Just one last question. How would you describe kind of the Israeli mindset towards Lebanon? Kind of a year on and the lessons learned over the buildup over so many years of, of Hezbollah’s capacity right on the border.
00:30:15:02 – 00:30:52:04
Thank you, Richard, for this question. It’s so important to I think it’s very important to understand the change in the state of mind, in Israel, because of the seven. What was happening on the 7th of October, 2000, 23, this tragic event, something it change, on the mindset of the Israelis that says we cannot bear any more than develop the fact that the, the monster, of terror organizations, monsters of terror organization that are building on the other side.
00:30:52:06 – 00:31:34:18
So when it happens, we need it to, to act immediately. And, you know, this this emotion penetrated into the security concept of the IDF. And nowadays, the security concept of the IDF is that we cannot, we cannot contain and develop developing threats anymore. And we have to do something immediately. And this is why, the IDF is, acting is, we see, during this last year, attacking all the time is developing threatened, on the Lebanese soil and also in Gaza.
00:31:34:20 – 00:31:56:14
And, and this is the reason for the daily strikes in Lebanon, the targeting, what is well perceived as Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire agreement. I want to thank you so much for sharing your analysis with us today. It’s most appreciated. We will continue alongside you to monitor this situation very closely. But thank you very much. Thank you.
00:31:56:14 – 00:31:57:08
Thank you, Rachel.