Israel’s High-Risk Strategy in Lebanon
Israel’s high-risk strategy in Lebanon: Wars to establish peace rarely succeed.
They usually occur with a choice: a preemptive strike to neutralize a tangible threat. Israel and Hezbollah have been trapped in the fear of escalating retaliatory attacks for about a year.
However, last week, Israel clearly decided to significantly increase its attacks against this Iranian proxy group.
According to some reports, Israel claimed it was seeking to escalate tensions in order to de-escalate, forcing its enemy into a diplomatic solution.
This is a dangerous and incomplete interpretation that might be designed to deceive its ally, the United States, into believing that the diplomatic solution, which Washington has invested a lot of energy into, remains Israel’s goal.
However, the more damage recently inflicted on Hezbollah, the more likely Israel’s short-term success seems.
A full-scale ground war between Israel’s tired and divided army and Hezbollah’s experienced and angry forces in southern Lebanon would likely be disastrous for Israel. This is exactly what Hezbollah excels at and is waiting for, yet it is something Israel currently does not want to engage in.
Last week showcased the technological gap between the two enemies. One side had to resort to technology from two decades ago to escape Israeli spyware and surveillance. The other side can infiltrate the limited supply chain of those devices, plant explosives in thousands of Taiwanese-designed pagers, simultaneously injuring hundreds of senior Hezbollah operatives, crippling them, while also killing children and injuring thousands more.
This extremely ruthless attack was not enough for Israel, and 24 hours later, with the explosion of a series of walkie-talkies, even at the funeral of those assassinated the day before, it killed more militants.
In the aftermath, Israel apparently identifies Hezbollah members and can simultaneously assassinate more than a dozen senior officials and a senior commander, Ibrahim Aqil, in a massive explosion in southern Beirut.
During all this time, Hezbollah’s positions in southern Lebanon have been repeatedly attacked by airstrikes, causing significant damage to Hezbollah’s command, control, morale, and equipment, all without an Israeli soldier on the ground.
It is important not to overlook the psychological and operational impact of such an attack, like the pager explosions, on any enemy. Hezbollah members likely do not know who to contact or how, they scatter and look for a way.
They probably cannot give a unified response and lose time over disputes about choosing successors.
Over time, they might rise and respond more intensely, but for now, Israel exploits the initial ruthless chaos.
Where does de-escalation fit into this? Israel probably hopes that Hezbollah feels it has taken a major hit and becomes concerned about further damage to Lebanese civilians, consequently agreeing to retreat north of the Litani River and yield to its enemy’s demands so that Israeli civilians can return to their homes in northern Israel.
The Israelis, who seem to have fully penetrated Hezbollah’s communications, probably have more control over this group’s internal negotiations than what is publicly shown. Militarily, last week was disastrous for Hezbollah.
Compared to 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine, it is more dangerous. At that time, a fossil was openly praised that was neither modern nor powerful. Based on evidence of Hezbollah’s significant vulnerability in recent days, Israel might be confident that it can deal a heavy blow to this group that its enemies cannot meaningfully counter. Hezbollah can certainly launch better missiles, but many are intercepted, and Hezbollah’s reserves are not unlimited.
If Hezbollah voluntarily retreats or refuses and violence continues, Israel can still target objectives one by one with its superior air force, while not being overly concerned that Hezbollah can pay a heavy price for its population centers.
Israel has shown in Gaza that it does not care about civilians. The impact of increased violence on ordinary Lebanese people is a double-edged sword: previous hatred towards the southern neighbor diminishes, but it also fuels hostility towards the damage and chaos that Hezbollah’s attacks have brought to Lebanon.
Perhaps Netanyahu, who in the past year has shown a reliance solely on military solutions possibly due to his personal political advancements, thinks he can bomb Hezbollah. Israel might cause enough damage to create a qualitative change in what Hezbollah does, but wars never end here.
Hezbollah will rebuild itself because its goal is based on a specific place and people: Lebanon and its Shiites. This is a lesson NATO learned too late in Afghanistan and is consciously noted here: that killing mid-level commanders in night raids makes them angrier, and their sons have no choice but to negotiate with you.
Israel flaunts its warfare wizardry and, when it turns a blind eye to civilian casualties, can incur severe costs. However, the path forward is not clear.
For Netanyahu’s war cabinet, it might not be so important whether Hezbollah decides to retreat or is bombed internally, but the lesson of violence in this region is that in the coming decades, it often returns to its perpetrators in unexpected and brutal ways.
