For months, the south Lebanon hill of Ali al-Taher was treated by Hezbollah as an exception to a strategy it had otherwise adopted since the beginning of the war with Israel on 2 March: avoid fighting to hold fixed geographical positions at all costs.
The shift reflected lessons drawn from the 2024 war, when Hezbollah's attempt to maintain front-line positions produced heavy casualties without preventing Israel from penetrating parts of southern Lebanon.
An official familiar with the group's thinking said that the experience, including the prolonged fighting around towns such as Khiam, pushed Hezbollah towards a more flexible guerrilla strategy, in which fighters would avoid being tied to territory and instead preserve their ability to operate after Israeli advances.
Even Bint Jbeil in April, long portrayed as the “mother of all battles”, was not regarded internally as a position that had to be held to the last fighter.
Ali al-Taher was different.
