Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed by Israel in the last year could be as high as 4,000, sources said this week, as the group sought to begin the process of burying its dead and regrouping following an agreed-to halt in hostilities.
Three sources familiar with Hezbollah operations told news agency Reuters the group thinks several thousand were killed in the 14 months since Israel began retaliating for the terror group’s cross-border fire on October 8, 2023, the vast majority of them during the last two months of intensified fighting.
The sources cited previously unreported internal estimates.
According to the sources’ estimate far outstrips tallies published by the resistance movement, but hews close to Israel’s announced figure and could provide a window into the extent to which Israel was able to damage the powerful Iranian proxy, which saw its leadership largely decapitated and its rocket arsenal significantly depleted.
The figure could also point to a relatively low toll for noncombatants killed in the fighting, in stark contrast to the high civilian toll claimed in Gaza.
According to figures published by the Lebanese health ministry on Tuesday, 3,823 people were killed in Israeli actions since October 8, 2023, a figure that did not differentiate between civilians and combatants.’
bd-pratidin/GR
