BEIRUT, Lebanon — It was too dangerous to meet in person. Israel has been hunting him and his comrades, picking them off by airstrike and drone in surprise attacks that often kill civilians.
In a 40-minute phone call late Thursday, a Hezbollah field commander described how he was injured when an Israeli missile exploded in the street next to a building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where he was sheltering. Flying glass and debris wounded his arms and legs; two people died beside him. The next day he was back on his feet. “I have an enemy occupying my land,” he said. “Where am I supposed to be?”
He gave only his nom de guerre, Jihad, out of fear Israel would track him. He said he is 62, has been in Hezbollah’s military wing since 2001 and holds a rank “the equivalent of a two-star,” though he declined to give a precise title that might identify him. He said he moves between Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has offices, and southern Lebanon, where he commands troops fighting Israel. “Let’s just say my expertise is those things that fly,” he laughed, referring to rockets Hezbollah has fired into northern Israel by the thousands.
After the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Jihad said Hezbollah retaliated on March 2 by firing rockets south from Lebanon. The group briefly paused this week after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire that Hezbollah believed would include Lebanon. When Israel said it would not, and then launched its largest assault on Lebanon since renewed fighting began, Hezbollah resumed rocket fire.
“We’re fighting an enemy that has the latest weapons, all the technology, but we are holding our ground,” he said. “If you’re skilled, you let him get closer. What kind of nerves do you have, and what kind of steadfastness? That’s where the battle happens.”
NPR spoke to Jihad to gain a rare glimpse into Hezbollah’s capabilities, its new command structure and tactics to evade Israeli surveillance. He acknowledged “mistakes” in 2024 that led to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s then-leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and described how the organization has rearmed since.
The United States, Israel and many other countries classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The group also has a political wing; 14 of its lawmakers sit in Lebanon’s parliament. Hezbollah has said it opposes planned talks in Washington between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors, the first official negotiations between the two countries since 1983.
Passing notes on the battlefield
Jihad said he did not use his own cellphone for the interview. Hezbollah largely abandoned modern consumer electronics after a September 2024 Israeli strike in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the group exploded, killing dozens. Israeli intelligence agencies have described a long-running operation to embed explosives in batteries sold to Hezbollah through a fake European company.
“Since then, we don’t trust anything anymore,” Jihad said. He relies on old Motorola walkie-talkies and radio transmitters. Some orders are still passed by handwritten notes carried by couriers on motorbikes.
A new org chart
Hezbollah, Jihad said, has “gone back to basics” since that attack and since Israel’s killing of Nasrallah later that month. Naim Qassem, another founding member, has taken over and, according to Jihad, has changed the organization’s approach by moving to a decentralized command structure reminiscent of tactics pioneered by Imad Mughniyeh, a leader killed in 2008.
He said fighters are split into semi-autonomous units that don’t communicate broadly for security: “One specializes in shooting, another watches the road. Another might even specialize in wrapping sandwiches [for the fighters]!” he said. “You execute your own specific tasks, with no understanding of what we as a whole are doing.”
Under Qassem, Jihad believes Hezbollah is both closer to Iran and more compartmentalized. He compared the structure to professional specialization: “In journalism, you do this and he does that. Your job reflects what you’ve studied and what your experience is. It’s like that. We have courses and qualifications, depending on the professional track you’re on.”
How Hezbollah rearmed after 2024
The current Israeli invasion reignited a conflict that had been meant to be paused by a November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, in which Lebanon’s Army promised to disarm Hezbollah in the country’s south. The United Nations has said Israel violated that ceasefire thousands of times with continued airstrikes between late 2024 and early this year, killing more than 100 civilians.
During that hiatus, Hezbollah did not disarm, Jihad said. The group pointed Lebanese soldiers to disused, defunct or damaged stockpiles and let them confiscate those, while its real arsenal remained untouched. “They didn’t confiscate anything! We gave them empty boxes, or a few old items to go blow up,” he said.
He said Hezbollah’s weapons were not as depleted by the 2024 war as Israel believed and that the group has since rearmed with both imported and domestically manufactured weapons. “These days, on the internet, you can learn how to manufacture anything,” he said. He would not say where weapons are assembled. Hezbollah is known to use a network of underground tunnels and caverns; some entrances were destroyed by Israel in 2024, but experts say many remain intact.
Traditionally, Hezbollah received most weapons from Iran via Syria. After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024, Qassem lamented that the supply route had been severed. Jihad said that, in practice, the route remained usable: “There’s nothing that can’t be smuggled through Syria — Kornets, Konkurs,” he said, naming Russian-made anti-tank weapons.
An abrupt ending
After 40 minutes, Jihad said he had to go. He sounded nervous; NPR could hear Israeli drones buzzing behind him and warplanes flying low. “We need to change our position,” he said. And then he hung up.