“Israel does not need a full-on attack to achieve its goal of crippling Hezbollah; Israel is pursuing this goal through a strategy of a thousand cuts,” she said. Even so, for now Hezbollah remains far from being “significantly weakened,” she added.

It’s an assessment shared by a Western diplomat who said that Hezbollah is still relatively active and seems untouched. Reported withdrawals of Iranian personnel in Syria could also be a sign of the Islamic Republic wanting to engage more covertly in the area to protect its supply lines to Lebanon and Hezbollah, the diplomat said, asking not to be named because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Four days before the strike that killed Zahedi, Israel carried out what was probably its most significant — and lethal — attack in Syria since it began targeting Iran and Hezbollah’s presence in the country in 2012. It destroyed a plant near the northern city of Aleppo where warheads for missiles destined mainly for Hezbollah were being assembled, plus a depot at the city’s airport used to store weapons flown in from Iran, according to people briefed on the attack. It also killed six Hezbollah operatives in their homes in Aleppo; at least 34 others were killed.

“A lot of facilities have been hit but Hezbollah is still extremely capable,” said Matthew Levitt, a leading expert on the group who previously directed the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Following Oct. 7, Iran has demonstrated for the first time how its proxies can operate in a synchronized and calibrated manner, according to congressional testimony last month by US Central Command chief General Michael E. Kurilla. Iran has worked for decades to “strategically encircle” US allies in the region and is exploiting what it sees as “a once in a generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East” to its advantage, he said.

‘Dangerous game’

In Iraq, one of Iran’s main proxy groups, Kataib Hezbollah, which had several of its members killed by the US in February in retaliation for a lethal attack on American troops in Jordan, has been threatening to engage in a more regional role in support of Iran and its allies. Earlier this month, one of its commanders vowed to flood neighboring Jordan with weapons for a march on Israel.

In Yemen, the Houthis’ role in the event of a sustained confrontation between Iran and Israel that could potentially draw in the US and its allies may actually exceed that of “all of Iran’s other arms in the region,” estimates Adnan Al-Gabarni, a Yemen-based researcher on the group.

The Houthis could completely shut down the Arabian and Red seas to all navigation, attack US military bases and assets in the region and launch drones and missiles at Israel along with other proxies in order to overwhelm missile defense systems there, he said.

For all Israel’s attacks and assassinations in Lebanon and Syria, US-UK strikes on the Houthis, and Washington’s targeting of Iran’s main proxies in Iraq, Iran’s axis of resistance retains its “actual capabilities,” according to the Middle East Institute’s Divsallar.

How those proxies are mobilized if the need arises will be carefully calibrated by Tehran according to what Israel might hit inside Iran and the damage caused, Hezbollah expert Levitt said before Friday’s reported strikes. Anything is possible, including attacks on Israeli and Western targets outside the Middle East.

“It’s a dangerous game,” said Levitt. “There are lots of different ways this can go sideways.”

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(With assistance from Mohammed Hatem.)

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