Targeting of group’s leaders has failed to win Israel significant strategic advantage in past, let alone deal fatal blow

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In 1992, Israeli media celebrated an assassination. The man killed then was Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary general of Hezbollah, whose convoy was struck by Israeli helicopters.

Then, as now, Israeli analysts speculated that Musawi’s death might possibly portend the end of Hezbollah, which had been founded 10 years before after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.