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Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-909802
The End of Hizbullah Leader Hassan Nasrallah
(Jerusalem Post) Avi Ashkenazi - Hizbullah is still struggling to rebuild, two years after Israel targeted its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, according to an investigation by Asharq Al-Awsat. Lebanese sources and Shi'ite clerics described how Israeli targeted killings began isolating Nasrallah long before Israel reached him personally. Every time Israel killed a field commander, Nasrallah "lost an eye that helped him see clearly," one cleric said. These commanders each held an entire world of knowledge: weapons depots, connections on the ground, methods of operation, movement routes, operational plans, and personal relationships built over years. According to Lebanese sources, when a commander was killed, his replacement did not necessarily receive all the information the commander had possessed. Sometimes, the network he had built disappeared along with him. Then came the pager attack. Wafiq Safa, one of Nasrallah's close associates, said that when he spoke with Nasrallah that day, "It was no longer the same Hassan Nasrallah." Nasrallah saw the wounds, heard the number of casualties, and "became a different person." IDF Col. (res.) S. said, "We followed Nasrallah for a very long time. We knew his apartments, his wife's home, his emergency locations, and the places where he hid....In every bunker he entered, we would have killed him. We had relevant attack plans for every building." Hizbullah lost almost all of its senior security and political leadership during the war. Israeli assessments hold that between 1/3 and 1/2 of Hizbullah's operational manpower was put out of action.