Since the past 10 days, Israel has stepped up its air strikes on Lebanon that has killed over 800 people so far. The objective is to destroy the infrastructure Hezbollah has built since they last fought a war in 2006.
Hezbollah Chief Killed?
On September 27, they mounted a massive targeted strike in Beirut focusing on Hezbollah command bunker located under residential buildings. It was the heaviest attack on Beirut in two decades. The attack came shortly after Netanyahu, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, vowed to press ahead with the attack on Hezbollah in defiance of US-led efforts to secure a 21-day cease-fire.
The target of the strike was Hezbollah chief/secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. This 64-year old man has been the chief of Hezbollah since the age of 32, that is, for half his life. He is rarely seen in public for fear of being assassinated.
According to Sky News citing Israeli army, Nasrallah has indeed been killed. IDF also took to X and posted, “Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world.” With an air force of just 280 fighters, it is indeed a remarkable achievement. It was followed by another five hours of the jets pounding Beirut.
Iran’s Strategic Design
In the current round of hostility, the nation in forefront is Iran which, except for one volley of about 320 missiles and drones that they fired on Israel in April, has largely been depending on its proxies, namely Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to harass Israel. While Iran provides resources and coordination, each group maintains its own agenda and local support base. Their tactical advantage is that they sandwich Israel from southern and northern sides, a psychologically disconcerting situation.
Established in the early 1980s, Hezbollah, a Shiite militant organization, was created by direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Their drones, missiles and chemical weapons are all courtesy Iran. You do not expect half-educated brutes to develop them in their backyards, do you?
It suits Iran to make someone else fight for its strategic objectives rather than getting involved in war directly. That’s why, in spite of much aggressive posturing and threatening of retaliation over the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran, it has, so far, refrained from actually doing anything, exactly as I had predicted.
Is Israel Planning a Ground Invasion of Lebanon?
Israel’s military chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has recently told troops that extensive air strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah could pave the way for them to “enter enemy territory”. That will be, as he said, to continue degrading Hezbollah. Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armoured vehicles toward the northern border with Lebanon.
However, merely the killing of the top leader does not really mean degradation of the fighting capability of the terrorist organization-cum-militia.
In 1996, Israel had launched a 17-day campaign in which they advanced militarily but the political cost of the operation was unacceptable. The Israeli public itself grew wary of the cost of occupation. Hezbollah’s resilience forced Israel to eventually withdraw in 2000. They fought again in 2006 following Hezbollah killing three Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two to demand release of Lebanese prisoners. The war was costly in terms of casualties and even the government-appointed Winograd Commission remarked that some of its goals for the military offensive were unclear.
This time, if they go with the limited objective of forcing Hezbollah well back from the border, to positions north of the Litani River, as demanded by a UN resolution passed in 2006, it might still make some sense. But, any attempt to exterminate Hezbollah would be, given the limited resources of Israel, impractical.
Gaza Was a Different Story
First, Hamas and Hezbollah are not comparable to each other. Second, Gaza was geographically a much smaller place—41×10 km (actually just 360 sq km). In this small area, they did pump in some 75,000 tons of bombs. If they could kill 40005 enemies and leave 92401 wounded at a cost of just 763 casualties amongst their ranks, it was because of the air power.
It was the bombs and not the ground invasion that destroyed 62% of the buildings there (137297 buildings including 380000 housing units). The munitions used were Mk-84 2000 lbs bomb; 500 lbs bombs; AGM-114 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground (AGM) missiles; GBU-28 (Guided Bomb Unit) Bunker Buster 4000 lbs bombs; GBU-39 Small Diameter 250 lbs bombs.
They would, however, require much more than that for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Even for bombing Gaza, they had to import bombs from the USA and there were many tense moments following USA’s internal politics.
The threat from Gaza has diminished greatly following this tremendous hammering. However, Hamas is far from finished. Hence, opening another front might run into the classical problem of two-front warfare with which, historically, the greatest military commanders have generally failed to cope with.
In any case, harassment by Hezbollah attacks has forced some 60,000 Israelis to evacuate their homes. In other words, Hezbollah has understood its limitations. They have refused to fight on the terms of Israel in regular battlefields. Rather, they have adopted the strategy of fighting from Lebanon’s civilian areas into Israel’s civilian areas, their Achilles heel.
Hezbollah does not mind taking civilian casualties; rather they are happy at that because it would embarrass Israel at international forums and might bring various pressures upon them. Clever strategy! They continue with their harassment but succeed in restraining Israel and getting it castigated by the liberals of the world.
Israel must not fall into the trap set by them. Hit them hard but hit selectively. Do not seek to exterminate them. Accept that it is not possible; it is not going to happen.
The best thing would to be is rendering it unfit for living. They achieved this object in Gaza by destroying buildings on a large scale and creating some 40 million tons of rubble that would take 15 years to clear. Gaza will never be the same again. This is what they must do in Lebanon also. Focus on their infrastructure. It is precisely for this reason that the Russians are focusing on power infrastructure in Ukraine and have plunged it into darkness.
Challenges of a Ground Invasion on a Larger Front
There is a problem in invading Lebanon in comparison to invading Gaza. Hezbollah, having deployed its men in the Syrian Civil War to support the Syrian government in line with Iran’s support for the Assad regime, has acquired valuable combat experience. They can no longer be dismissed as terrorists armed with light weapons fighting in urban areas. They are now more like a professional army fighting in urban area.
Moreover, besides the signature weapon of terrorists, the RPG-series anti-tank weapons, Hezbollah has, a number of ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) acquired from Iran and Syria. These can significantly blunt an Israeli tank offensive. They also have some T-55 and T-72 tanks and armored personnel carriers from Syria and South Lebanon Army.
They are believed to have an impressive array of some 40,000 to 130,000 rockets. They include the Falaq-2 rocket, used for the first time on June 08, which has a range of 10 km and carries larger warheads than the previously used Falaq-1. The Fajr, Khaibar, Raad and Zilzal, have medium ranges of 40-200 km and powerful payloads, carrying between 50 and 600 kg of explosive warheads. Hezbollah reportedly has the Iranian Fateh-110 and the famous Soviet-era Scud unguided missile, with ranges of 250-300 km and 300-550 km respectively, also.
On September 25, they had fired a missile that was, for the first time, able to reach Tel Aviv. It was intercepted alright but, as we saw on October 07, 2023, missile defence systems may be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It is believed that their larger missiles could have escaped destruction, having been stored underground and would be used in an all-out war only.
Militarily, there is no comparison between the situation in 1978 and today. In 1978, Israel could mount a ground invasion in southern Lebanon and push the PLO back. Four years later, they mounted another offensive and with the help of Lebanese Christian allies, laid a siege of Beirut, forcing an evacuation of PLO leaders from there. By 1985, they withdrew from most of Lebanon but maintained a 15-20 km wide buffer zone in south Lebanon to prevent cross-border attacks. This area was patrolled by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian militia allied with Israel.
Since then, Hezbollah has entered the scene. PLO was just a terrorist organization capable of murders and hijackings. Hezbollah is almost an army.
Ground invasion is a labor-intensive affair. Air operations against enemies that do not have credible anti-aircraft defence systems is virtually risk free and that’s why Israel has not lost a single plane in one year. However, casualties are bound to take place in ground combat.
Ground invasion of an enemy who has a credible capability of ground combat amounts to fighting on his terms; pounding him from the air is fighting on your terms. The problem of Israel is that, being a small nation of just 9.56 million, it cannot afford to take significant casualties. Ukraine is 380 million and that’s how it could take casualties.
Also Read: Explosive Warfare between Israel and Hezbollah
A ground offensive, after taking casualties, may soon grind into a stalemate that can only be broken by air operations.
Terrorist organizations operating from safe sanctuaries of friendly nations have an intrinsic advantage. They have both breeding ground as well as grazing pastures. Operating from within sovereign nations means that they are accorded a measure of protection unless the other side decides to launch a full-scale war on the host nation as the USA did in its Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban from 2001-2021. Unless you do that, while great damage can be inflicted upon the terrorists, but it is almost impossible to eradicate them. The USA bombed every inch of Afghanistan in 20 years but, in the end, had to withdraw ignominiously. Ideological indoctrination of Islamic terrorists is extremely easy and they have an unending supply of terrorists from an early age. They do not mind taking casualties; rather, they exalt it as martyrdom.
On the other hand, terrorist organizations like the LTTE and the ISIS which fought only from the territories they had captured without such ‘national protection’ were eventually decimated.
Militarily Sound Advice to Netanyahu
There is no doubt that Hezbollah cannot fight conventional maneuver warfare against the IDF. But the thing is that they would not even bother to fight conventional maneuver warfare.
In any case, they have enough firepower and prepared defensive fighting positions and tunnel systems like the Hamas to blunt an armored incursion or make progress unacceptably costly to Israel.
Military wisdom dictates that Israel must refrain from getting bogged down in ground combat in southern Lebanon. We do not want Israeli offensive to face a situation that the Russian army is facing in Ukraine. Russia is a massive country both in terms of its industrial capacity and manpower. Historically, they have been absorbing losses in their wars and yet emerging victorious in the end. Israel does not enjoy that luxury.
In simple words, do not launch a ground invasion. Tanks lined up with their diesel engines grumbling pumps up testosterone but great generals know that the ultimate object of any combat is victory at minimum losses; fighting is a means to victory, not an object in itself.
Israel has great superiority over the enemy in air power; they must leverage that. Netanyahu would be well-advised to never fight on enemy’s terms. It is eminently desirable to crush Hezbollah but not against sound military advice. If political desirability and military feasibility find themselves opposed, one must always choose what is militarily feasible.
Let us destroy Lebanon from the air, not from the ground. Hurt them where it hurts; but without breaking your own fingers.
