Following the most violent Israeli strike in Syria | Manufacturing of weapons by Lebanese Hezbollah paralyzed and transportation operations by air and land under microscope
The latest airdrop by Israeli forces in Masyaf, which is the largest Israeli violation ever of Syria’s sovereignty, has become a turning point for the Lebanese Hezbollah, where the Israeli compound operation is considered as the most violent strike ever against Hezbollah in Syrian territory.
The latest operation targeted several vital positions, as well as the major target (Heer Abbas factory) which is one of the largest and most important factories for manufacturing missiles and developing drones.
The factory was supervised by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in participation of the Lebanese Hezbollah.
With the destruction of that factory, Hezbollah has lost its ability to produce more missiles in Syria; this, in turn, paralyses all efforts to manufacturing weapons, especially since Hezbollah has no abilities to cover its heavy loss left by the latest operation or habilitate and construct new similar factories in the near future.
For years, the Lebanese Hezbollah has depended on manufacturing weapons in Syrian territory in order to raise its combat and military abilities; this enabled Hezbollah to be largely independent regarding transporting complicated weapons.
With attacking vital infrastructure, Hezbollah has become in trouble, where it has lost its ability to locally manufacture weapons, which may lead it to search for other available alternatives. However, the current conditions makes it difficult for Hezbollah to find appropriate solutions.
On the other hand, Hezbollah’s ability to transport weapons from Syria to Lebanon has been largely restricted, where the transportation of weapons through the Syria-Lebanon border is now under strict surveillance and monitoring by Israeli forces, whether through drones which monitor border areas round-the-clock or through agents recruited inside Syria whose task is to monitor movements by Hezbollah.
This strict surveillance has hindered all efforts to transport weapons by Hezbollah which now faces a major challenge regarding securing weapon shipments transported from Syria to Lebanon.
Beside the paralyzation of manufacturing weapons locally and challenges against transporting them by land, transporting accurate weapons by air remains an inappropriate solution for Hezbollah for several reasons.
The most important reason is manifested in the escalating Israeli attacks on Syrian airports, such as Damascus and Aleppo airports, which were previously major stations for exporting weapons to Hezbollah through Iranian flights; let alone the pressure exerted by Arab powers on the Syrian regime. Those factors had led to suspending transportation of weapons by air.
In earlier reports, SOHR highlighted confirmed information regarding constructing factories for manufacturing and developing medium-range and short-range missiles by Iran since 2018, and confirmed that those factories were supervised by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with participation of the Lebanese Hezbollah.
SOHR had also confirmed that those factories, the most prominent of which was “Heer Abbase” factory in Masyaf, started recently to develop drones.
Since then, those sites came under attack by Israeli aircraft on more than five occasions, one of those attacks was documented in 2022 when over 1,000 Iranian-made missiles was destroyed in an airstrike which targeted the scientific research centre in Masyaf. Explosions lasted then for nearly six hours.
The latest Israeli strike is considered as a clear message to the Lebanese Hezbollah, warning it that the Syrian territory has become no more safe for manufacturing, developing or transporting weapons and that all movements by Hezbollah are under “Israeli’s microscope.”