Is this the end for Hezbollah?

The recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is a war that’s not yet officially a war, initiated by a political party without a mandate that takes its orders from Tehran, in support of a Palestinian party that few Lebanese care about.

It is a decades-old conflict, an exhausting, deadly stalemate, but this recent escalation could prove to be decisive. There’s a chance Israel could finally deliver a dagger blow to Hezbollah. This would be a staggering achievement because the Iranian-backed Shia militant group controls many, if not all, of the levers of power in Lebanon, and has been a constant irritant to Israel for nearly 40 years.

The optics don’t look good for either side. On Monday, nearly 600 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were slaughtered and over 1,000 injured in ‘precision’ Israeli air strikes, allegedly given the green light by the Americans. Over 10,000 residents of southern Lebanon fled north to Beirut, just like they did in 2006, the last time Hezbollah and the Israeli armed forces went toe-to-toe.