The Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah has resorted to a arsenal greatly expanded for more than 10 months of cross-border hostilities with Israel. One of the most heavily armed state organisations in the world, it claims to have used only a small part of its reserves so far. It launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel early Sunday morning in retaliation for the killing of a senior commander in Beirut last month, following a pre-emptive strike by the Israeli army, which it claims to have thwarted a much larger offensive with pre-emptive action.
Here are some facts about Hezbollah’s weapons:
The group backed by Iran possesses more than 150,000 missiles and rocketsaccording to the World Factbook of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Hezbollah says it has rockets that can reach all areas of IsraelMany of them are unguided, but it also has precision missiles, drones, and anti-tank, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
Hezbollah’s main supporter and arms supplier is Iran. Many of its weapons are Iranian, Russian or Chinese models.
Lebanese militia leader Hassan Nasrallah said in 2021 that the group had 100,000 fighters. The CIA World Factbook estimated in 2022 that it had up to 45,000 fighters, about 20,000 of them full-time.
Unguided rockets made up the bulk of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal in the last war with Israel in 2006, when the group fired some 4,000 at Israel, mostly Katyusha type missiles with a range of 30 kilometers.
Nasrallah has said that the biggest change in Hezbollah’s arsenal since 2006 has been the expansion of its precision guidance systems and that the group has the ability to modernize rockets with guidance systems inside Lebanon.
It has Iranian models, such as rockets Council (thunder in Arabic), Fajr (dawn) and Zilzal (earthquake), which have a more powerful payload and a longer range than Katyushas. Rockets fired by Hezbollah at Israel during the current conflict in Gaza have included Katyushas and Burkan (volcano) with a explosive charge of 300 to 500 kilos. The rockets Section 2also made in Iran and first used in June, can carry a larger warhead than the Falaq 1 used previously.
Hezbollah used extensively anti-tank missiles guided in the 2006 war and has deployed them again, including the The grainRussian made.
It has also used an Iranian-made guided missile known as “al-Mas“, according to a report by the pro-Iranian Arab broadcaster al-Mayadeen. The al-Mas can hit targets beyond the line of sight following a arched pathallowing it to attack from above, according to a report by Israel’s Alma Research Center. This projectile is part of a family of weapons manufactured by Iran using reverse engineering based on the missile family Spike Israeli, according to the same report.
Hezbollah has shot down Israeli drones several times during the current conflict using surface-to-air missiles. Although the Shiite group was long believed to possess anti-aircraft missiles, these attacks marked the first time the group had used such weapons.
The group also said it had fired on Israeli warplanes for the first time, forcing them to leave Lebanese airspace, without saying what type of weapon it used. It did not hit any.
The pro-Iranian militia has launched numerous attacks with unidirectional explosive drones and has said it is using drones that drop bombs and then return to Lebanon. In some attacks, drones have been sent to distract Israeli air defenses while others flew towards targets.
Hezbollah’s arsenal includes the models Ayoub y Mersad, locally assembled, which analysts say are cheap and relatively easy to produce.
The Lebanese group demonstrated for the first time that it had antibuque missiles in 2006, when it hit an Israeli warship 16 kilometers off the coast, killing four crew members and damaging the vessel. Since the 2006 war, Hezbollah has acquired the anti-ship missile Yakhonta Russian-made missile with a range of 300 kilometers, say sources familiar with its arsenal, although the militia has not confirmed that it possesses this weapon.
2024-08-25 10:04:02