{"id":464841,"date":"2026-05-28T18:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T18:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/464841\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T18:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T18:54:18","slug":"one-third-of-hezbollahs-pre-2023-force-eliminated-idf-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/464841\/","title":{"rendered":"One-third of Hezbollah\u2019s pre-2023 force eliminated, IDF reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around one third of Hezbollah’s pre-2023 forces have been killed by the IDF in recent years, IDF Chief Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said on<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n

Deffrin was trying to confront criticism that the IDF and the government are not doing enough to protect northern Lebanon border village residents and IDF troops in southern Lebanon from Hezbollah FPV drone attacks.<\/a><\/p>\n

Deffrin mentioned that 2,500 Hezbollah fighters<\/a> have been killed since this current war started in March, while in total, the IDF has said that 7,000-8,000 terrorists have been killed since October 8, 2023.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah had 30,000 fighters in 2023<\/p>\n

According to the chief spokesman, since Hezbollah had around 30,000 fighters in 2023, this would be closing in on one-third of the terror group’s fighters.<\/p>\n

The statistics are somewhat problematic as other IDF officials have put Hezbollah’s numbers at between 40,000-50,000.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, the IDF has also said that 10,000 Hezbollah fighters were wounded in the current war, and a very large number of terrorists were wounded during the 2023-2024 conflict, including thousands alone on September 17-18, 2024, when the Mossad sprang the exploding beepers and walkie-talkies on Hezbollah.<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition, the IDF said that among the Hezbollah operatives it has killed recently have been relatively senior commanders.<\/p>\n

These commanders have included: the El-Hiam region commander, the deputy commander of the special Badr unit, the intelligence chief of the Shakif region, the engineering commander and deputy commander of the Yohmor region, and the engineering commander of the Jouaiyya region.<\/p>\n

Despite Defrin’s reassurances, other senior IDF officials have told the Jerusalem Post that it could be months or longer before the IDF has a real answer for the relatively new FPV drone threat.<\/p>\n

Another senior IDF official said that the military has handed out special shotguns that fire American-produced bullets that operate by spraying an area with smaller pellets.<\/p>\n

This can have the effect of increasing the likelihood of striking a small threat, like a drone, which a soldier might miss when firing only in one area at a time.<\/p>\n

Further, the IDF has spread the use of nets to catch and defray the FPV drones.<\/p>\n

Next, the IDF, working with the Defense Ministry and a number of private sector businesses, is developing and testing a number of new solutions to help better detect the FPV drones and warn soldiers more rapidly about the danger of an impending drone attack.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a senior IDF official expressed frustration that although the IDF would like to break the link between Hezbollah and the ongoing US-Iran talks, Israel may not succeed in those efforts.<\/p>\n

The IDF said that the outcome of those efforts depends more on the US than it does on Israel’s military or its diplomacy.<\/p>\n

If Hezbollah could be kept out of any permanent ceasefire deal with Iran, this would give Israel a strategic advantage against the group going forward.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the IDF was positive about the impact of ongoing three-way negotiations between Israel, the US, and the government of Lebanon – a government which has continually distanced itself from Hezbollah during the current war.<\/p>\n

There is an ongoing struggle between the IDF’s desire to be the party that disarms Hezbollah versus the reality that the terror group has assistance from Iran, which can give it bargaining power vis-\u00e0-vis the US.<\/p>\n

The IDF did note that Hezbollah has been desperately pushing Iran to reach a ceasefire deal with the US so that it can rest after entering a war which has led it to major losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around one third of Hezbollah’s pre-2023 forces have been killed by the IDF in recent years, IDF Chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21754,127486,42,86,1031,46,88,89,16096,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-464841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-drone-attack","tag-effie-defrin","tag-headlines","tag-hezbollah","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-lebanon-war","tag-mossad","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}