The southern suburbs of Beirut have always been a strategic center for Hezbollah in social, military and political terms, to the point that it has become the impregnable fortress and the main center of the party. Moreover, it was one of its most important strongholds on which it relied to ensure its influence, achieve its strategies and implement its agendas, as it was a human reservoir of supporters and fighters, and it contained the huge arsenal of weapons that was the “big stick” with which it intimidated its opponents, dominated the political scene and imposed its will on the inside and outside.

But the strike of September 27, 2024, which led to the assassination of (the party’s secretary and the suburb), revealed the fragility of that (fortress); which had imposed a strict, self-governing security rule for decades, and quickly turned into a (trap) for the invincible party, so that the next day the journey of radical changes began in the course of 18 years of (mutual deterrence).

How did the suburb turn into a trap?

The strategy of change in the attack: In recent years, Israel has developed different tactics to confront Hezbollah “potentially.” When the opportunity arose, it became clear that a radical shift had occurred in the military confrontation. Instead of launching direct and large-scale attacks on Hezbollah, as it did in the July 2006 war, Israel relied in the past few months – culminating in September 2024 – on precision attacks. Initially, it crippled Hezbollah’s ability to move or defend itself, targeting its most prominent leaders through successive assassinations of high-ranking and influential security figures. Later, it targeted its infrastructure and sensitive weapons and ammunition depots, until it was able to decapitate it in the “knockout blow.”.

Infiltration and trapping

It is a puzzle that analysts and experts are still trying to understand today: what happened and how these attacks occurred. In a quick and simplified overview, anyone who observes the new strategy of Israeli attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut during the Gaza war, which reached its peak last month, must have discerned in its objectives that it was deliberately intended to reveal more than one message; the most prominent of which is that Hezbollah no longer possesses the same degree of sovereignty over its areas, and that Israeli intelligence has succeeded in penetrating and weakening Hezbollah, which presented itself as a unified and disciplined force with a first-rate counter-espionage capability within its ranks.

But with the assassination of the party’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and senior frontline leaders, we will not find for many years anyone who can answer the simplest and most important question at the same time: How did the party’s leaders become so confident that Israel was unable to reach them, given what they had built tens of meters deep in the reconstruction of the southern suburbs after the 2006 war?.

How could they trust staying in the suburb after the successive assassinations in the past few months and its transformation into an open arena for Israeli planes and drones?.

Popular shift from support to resentment

Israel is well aware that targeting all areas of influence of (Hezbollah) will not only destroy its strongholds, depots and vital infrastructure, but will also push civilians or its environment to diminish its ability to protect them.

This contradiction between the party’s stated goal of defending Lebanon, its ideology, or its environment, and the serious and significant damage to property and lives they suffered, put the party in a difficult position before its popular base, which will hold it accountable after it used them as human shields to protect itself, its centers, and its ammunition.

The party will remain for years facing a moral and military dilemma, because the fall of the suburb not only led to the military collapse of the stronghold, but also caused serious damage to its reputation as a “resistance movement” whose goal, as it claimed, was to protect its environment or community that provided it with all kinds of support.

Add to that the ongoing conflict within Lebanon itself and the economic and political pressures that have contributed to increasing the fragility of the situation between the party and its environment; the party, or what remains of it, which used to rely heavily on the support of its allies, found itself forced to leave its environment to face all kinds of internal challenges (displacement and destitution) that are no less serious than the external challenges.

The southern suburbs of Beirut, which deceived their surroundings into believing they were a symbol of strength and resistance, are now a scorched earth and remain vulnerable to repeated attacks. With the fall or demise of these suburbs, a journey of geopolitical and strategic shifts will begin across all levels and issues.

Information about the suburb

The number of displaced Shiites to the southern suburbs increased with the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, as more than 150,000 residents of the eastern neighborhoods of the capital, Beirut, were forced to leave their areas after being harassed by Christian militias.

Near the suburb was the Burj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp, which covered an area of ​​about 750 square meters and had a population of about 25,000 people.

The number of commercial and economic institutions in the southern suburbs exceeds 37,000, the number of its hospitals reaches eight, and the number of bank branches exceeds one hundred, in addition to a network of schools and cultural and religious centers.