The Israeli military and the Lebanese government have dramatically expanded intelligence-sharing since November 2024, helping Lebanon to escalate its long-running crackdown on Hezbollah.
The intensified cooperation is the direct result of Israel’s large-scale attacks on Hezbollah operatives and targeted killings of senior Hezbollah officials in the fall of 2024. The Israeli attacks have re-ordered the political landscape in Lebanon, where Hezbollah long enjoyed outsized political influence thanks to its support among the country’s large Shiite community and its financial and military backing from Tehran. Now the government in Beirut is seizing the chance to cut the militia down to size.
The Israelis have taken the opportunity to supply their Lebanese counterparts with intelligence on Hezbollah weapons caches located around the country, effectively using Lebanese security forces as their proxies for continuing prosecution of Israel’s war against Hezbollah. Since Israel and Lebanon signed a cease-fire announcement in November 2024, the Israelis have supplied their Lebanese counterparts with the coordinates of Hezbollah military sites and weapons depots.
Israel relies in part on signals and satellite intelligence that far exceed Lebanese capabilities. The Lebanese Army lacks both the access and the intelligence needed to locate Hezbollah’s weapons depots.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a retired Israeli reserve officer and military expert, told Alhurra that Israel had long been “very cautious” in carrying out operations inside Lebanon, preferring instead to target Iranian weapons shipments in Syria. But the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which triggered a broad Israeli campaign against Iranian proxies across the Middle East, known as the “Axis of Resistance,” have transformed that calculation. “The situation has completely changed,” he said. “Today, thanks to the agreement we have with Lebanon, we allow ourselves to act against any Hezbollah attempt to redeploy in the south. We do not hesitate to act.”
Israeli military sources told Alhurra that they believe Hezbollah’s capabilities have been reduced by 75 percent. (Alhurra was unable to independently confirm that estimate.) A certain number of rockets and shells remain, they said, adding that this arsenal is “largely ineffective” due to Israel’s targeting of Hezbollah’s command structure. A Lebanese army source, however, downplayed Israeli estimates of the scale of weapons destroyed or seized. The source noted that most of the weapons captured are already in poor condition, often damaged in tunnels, making them hazardous to handle. Several Lebanese soldiers have been injured or killed in separate incidents in the south while attempting to move them.
The intelligence-sharing “Monitoring Mechanism” was originally created under the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. While not new, it gained renewed effectiveness after being reinforced in the November 2024 cessation of the war between Israel and Hezbollah
The collaboration takes place with little direct contact between the Israelis and Lebanese. An informed Israeli military source told Alhurra that U.S. officers stationed in Israel’s Northern Command headquarters play a key role in the collaboration, acting as intermediaries between them and Lebanese officials. French officers and members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are also involved. According to the Lebanese army source, the Lebanese military receives information either directly through the mechanism or, at times, via UNIFIL.
More recently, however, an additional source of vital intelligence on Hezbollah has emerged: local residents in southern Lebanon. Driven by fears that their homes or lands could be bombed—or that nearby weapons might explode—citizens have begun discreetly reporting Hezbollah weapons caches to the Lebanese army.
Israeli military sources told Alhurra that the Lebanese army—particularly its engineering units—has “demonstrated high efficiency in handling information received from the Israelis through the mechanism, dismantling and destroying these sites within hours or days.” This role, the sources added, is highly valued by the Israelis, who see it as effective enough to forestall large-scale Israeli airstrikes.
Still, Israel maintains the right to intervene directly if the Lebanese army fails to address targets “within a reasonable time.” Israel continues to launch small daily strikes on Hezbollah positions—killing on average one or more fighters each day—and targeting locations deemed an “immediate threat.” According to an Israeli source, these strikes have severely degraded Hezbollah’s command-and-control system, limiting its ability to coordinate on the battlefield or fire simultaneous rocket salvos.
The sources added that the campaign has reached all levels of the group, striking even the senior leadership appointed after most of their predecessors were killed in Israel’s attacks in 2024. These operations, they said, dismantled what Hezbollah once described as its “balance of deterrence.”
Kuperwasser said Israel has “eliminated” more than 250 Hezbollah operatives since the ceasefire—most of them while moving south or after having already reached the area, in open defiance of the ceasefire agreement.
“The fact that we had to eliminate all these operatives tells you a lot about Hezbollah’s determination to rearm and redeploy in the south,” the Israeli military expert noted.
For its part, the Lebanese source stressed that the effectiveness of the joint mechanism has helped the Israelis and Lebanese to make progress on establishing a demilitarized zone in Lebanese territory south of the Litani River, an area where Hezbollah once reigned virtually unchallenged. The picture north of the Litani, however, remains far less clear.
