CNN:

Israel’s audacious assassination of Hezbollah’s leader on Friday has rattled the group, delivering its most severe blow since its founding. This has led its Iranian backers to warn that Israel has entered a dangerous phase of the conflict by altering the rules of engagement.

As Tehran watches its most prized non-state ally take a beating, questions are mounting about how it may respond.

The Jewish state significantly escalated its yearlong conflict with the group after expanding its Gaza war objectives on September 17 to include its northern front with Hezbollah. The following day, thousands of pagers used by its members exploded simultaneously, with walkie-talkies targeted the day after that. Israel then began an air assault that killed several Hezbollah commanders and led to the highest number of casualties in Lebanon in almost two decades.

And on Friday, Israel struck what it said was Hezbollah’s headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah.

How much has Hezbollah been degraded?
The Israeli military has claimed that the group’s chain of command “has been almost completely dismantled” after it killed a series of what it says are top officials in the organization this week.

“Hezbollah has taken the biggest blow to its military infrastructure since its inception. In addition to losing weapon depots and facilities, the group has lost most of its senior commanders, and its communications network is broken,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of “Hezbollahland.”

Despite its losses however, the group still retains skilled commanders and many of its most powerful assets, including precision-guided missiles and long-range missiles that could inflict significant damage to Israel’s military and civilian infrastructure, said Ghaddar. Most of those missiles haven’t been deployed yet.

Since Israel stepped up its campaign, Hezbollah’s military performance “has proven that it was able to absorb that shock and was able to bounce back and it has been striking hard at northern Israel for days now,” said Amal Saad, Hezbollah expert and lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University in Wales.

On Wednesday, Israel intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Hezbollah near Tel Aviv, an unprecedented attack that reached deep into the country’s commercial heartland. Hezbollah said it targeted the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence agency.

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