Why didn’t Iran or Hezbollah respond after Israel destroyed Ali al-Taher?

Report by Amal Shehadeh, English adaptation by Karine Keuchkerian 

Several questions remained unanswered following the destruction of Ali al-Taher hill, most notably: Why did Iran or Hezbollah not respond to the operation?

There are no clear answers, but information points to two possible reasons for the lack of a response.

Israeli military and security officials viewed the lack of a response as a sign of Hezbollah’s weakness. 

Other assessments, based on security and intelligence estimates, suggested that Tehran had concluded Hezbollah had become weak and that the Houthis had emerged as a stronger alternative proxy.

However, these two explanations did not convince some military and security officials, who said the explosion at Ali al-Taher hill resulted from certain understandings, the details of which have not been disclosed. 

They said these understandings allowed Hezbollah fighters, and possibly members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to leave the tunnels before they were detonated, under the pretext of heavy fog.

Israeli media, meanwhile, quoted officers who oversaw the operation as saying it was highly complex and involved jamming that prevented Hezbollah from assisting those trapped inside, ultimately leading to their deaths.

In any case, the Israeli army’s General Staff is waiting for the holidays to end before presenting the political leadership with an updated defense posture in Lebanon following the destruction of Ali al-Taher.

A military official said the changes would be tactical and would ensure the preservation of what Israel described as its operational success at the hill.

Meanwhile, a source familiar with coordination between Washington and Tel Aviv said messages were conveyed between Lebanon and Israel through U.S. mediation, aimed at calming the situation on the ground and conveying that the operation at Ali al-Taher was intended to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure used to target Israel.