Sarah Dadouch: Hezbollah’s elite military unit Radwan is ready and right on Israel’s border

When the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed on Wednesday their deadliest airstrikes on Lebanon since the start of the conflict in October, killing at least 10 civilians and six Hezbollah fighters, the IDF said several of the targets were sites associated with the organisation’s elite Radwan force.

The Radwan force’s fighters put on a show last year for local and foreign reporters who were invited on a media tour of one of its training camps in southern Lebanon. The demonstration gave a rare glimpse of a group that has increasingly become a focus of Israeli operations.

On a hill near the village of Aaramta, about 25km from the Israeli border, the group conducted its “Hezbollah Wargames”. Drones carrying the Hezbollah and Lebanese flags fluttered above as the paramilitaries drilled below, firing explosives at targets, fighting hand to hand and simulating cross-border attacks on mock Israeli outposts.

The show of fighters – many of them strongly built, all wearing balaclavas – was intended to publicly flex Hezbollah’s military muscle. They were members of the al-Hajj Radwan force, an elite fighting unit within Hezbollah.

Here’s what to know about these forces.

​What is the Radwan force?

The unit was created to launch offensive attacks, including forays into Israel. The unit is believed to have been engaged in the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border since October 7. Israeli officials have long expected it would be at the helm of any future Hezbollah foray into Israel.

Israel estimates the unit’s strength at thousands of operatives. Its goal, the IDF says in a recent video, is to “conquer the Israeli Galilee”.

“Deployed along the Blue Line in between Israel and Lebanon” – the border monitored by UN peacekeepers including Irish soldiers – “the Radwan unit keeps a close watch on northern Israel, and are always collecting information,” the IDF says.

The unit was formed in 2006 as the Intervention Force. It was renamed in 2008 to honour senior Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah, who was killed that year in a joint Mossad-CIA operation. Mughniyah fought under the nom de guerre “Radwan”, the Islamic angel who guards the heavens.​

What makes the unit elite?

The Radwan force gained prominence for its performance in brutal fighting to wrest territory in Lebanon and Syria back from Islamic State (IS).

Hezbollah dispatched fighters to Syria to help prop up Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Assad and his regime are part of what Iran terms its “axis of resistance”: governments and military groups whose interests align with those of Iran and that oppose Israel. It also includes Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq.

Many Radwan fighters are battle-hardened. “Most of them fought in Syria,” according to an official close to the group. “They fought in hard conditions: desert, mountains, snow. Their training is of a higher [calibre]; their expertise is better.”

The official said the group was seen as having proved its fighting ability against IS in several places in Syria.​

Why are we hearing about it now?

Since October 7, Israeli military leaders have sought to raise awareness of the Radwan force. The IDF identifies the leader as Haytham Ali Tabatabai. The US State Department has said Tabatabai “commanded the group’s special forces in both Syria and Yemen” and works as “part of a larger Hezbollah effort to provide training, materiel and personnel in support of its destabilising regional activities.”

Tabatabai is on a US list of terrorists in 2016 and it has offered a reward of up to $5m (€4.7m) for information.

The killing in early January of a Radwan commander, Wissam al-Tawil, attracted more attention to the group. It was the first death of a commander announced by Hezbollah since October 7. Nearly 50 Radwan fighters have been killed since October 7. About 172 Hezbollah members have been killed in Syria and Lebanon during that time.​

What is the Radwan force’s ­significance?

The existence of the unit, “with its reported independent chain of command and its own brigades and battalions, points to how sophisticated Hezbollah has become militarily, beyond its advancement in weapons”, said Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University who researches Hezbollah.

Rarely do irregular armed forces or non-state actors have such sophisticated special operators, she said. The unit is one reason Hezbollah’s military force is viewed as a hybrid actor, an irregular force that’s becoming increasingly conventional.

Israel seems to share that view. “They have tools that they did not have in 2006,” Lt Col Shlomi Binder told the Haaretz newspaper in 2022, “chief among them a plan and the ability to attack in our territory.” He said Hezbollah had improved its defence abilities and increased the array of weapons targeting Israeli positions.

“One of the clear signs of the transition from guerrillas to an army is the development of broad offensive formations, and not just a specific or defensive attack,” Lt Col Binder said. “This is not necessarily bad for us. The more they become an army and produce regular patterns, the more they create targets for us to attack.”

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