Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon represents a major escalation of Tel Aviv’s conflict with… HezbollahInternational Crisis Group experts Heiko Wiman, David Wood and Mairav Zonzian analyze the situation and stakes in the following explanatory material.
1/ What is Israel trying to achieve in Lebanon?
On October 1, Israel announced that its forces had crossed the border into southern Lebanon, nearly a year after its confrontation with Hezbollah, which followed the attacks of the Islamic Resistance Movement (agitation) on October 7, 2023 immediately following the Israeli attack on Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army later said that it had been launching secret raids on southern Lebanon for months, but this operation threatened to be much more serious.
Israel’s announcement came two weeks after its dramatic escalation of what had become a war of attrition with Hezbollah, by blowing up the party’s communications equipment and launching sweeping air strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa Valley, attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Hezbollah cadres. God.
The recent attacks eliminated a large number of the party’s senior leaders, including its Secretary-General Hassan NasrallahIt also killed and wounded a large number of civilians.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah is linked to the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. After the outbreak of the last war, Hezbollah announced that it was opening a “support front” for its ally Hamas, so it fired rockets at Israeli military installations in the Shebaa Farms, an area that the party says is part of Lebanon and claims. Israel is part of the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel returned fire, and the two sides subsequently exchanged cross-border strikes over a period of 11 months. Before the mid-September escalation, 600 people had been killed in Lebanon and more than 110,000 were displaced, 50 people had been killed in Israel (in addition to 12 Syrian Druze in the occupied Golan), and about 80,000 were displaced from their homes.
The extent and scope of Israel’s war on Hezbollah is not entirely clear. One of the goals appears to be to sever the link that Hezbollah has established between the Gaza and Lebanon fronts, so that Israel can enjoy freedom to operate in Gaza without worrying about any effects on the campaign in the north.
With the United States supporting Israel’s campaign – and some senior American officials indicating that it is a historic opportunity to reduce Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanese politics – Israel may be emboldened to move forward.
Meanwhile, the repercussions for the Lebanese people have been enormous. According to the Lebanese authorities, more than 2,000 people have been killed, about 10,000 injured, and more than a million people have been displaced since last October 8.
2/ Does the assassination of Nasrallah represent the end of Hezbollah?
Maybe not. Nasrallah led the party for 32 years, and oversaw its growth from a resistance group in southern Lebanon to a strategic player in the entire Middle East. He also supervised the party’s entry into Lebanese electoral politics and official governance.
Nasrallah was a dominant player in the Lebanese political scene, embodying the idea of “resistance” with his charismatic personality. However, Hezbollah is a political and social institution, as well as a militia, and it is unlikely to collapse due to the death of an important leader. In fact, in 1992, Nasrallah himself became Secretary-General within 24 hours of Israel killing his predecessor. Abbas Al Musawi.
Certainly, the killing of Nasrallah represents the most dramatic blow in a series of blows that the party has received since Israel escalated its attacks in mid-September, and it is clear that these attacks had an impact. For a few days after the escalation in mid-September, the party was firing fewer missiles at Israel, instead of responding more forcefully, which indicates that its capabilities had been damaged.
But there are also signs of resilience. Rocket fire into northern Israel began to rise again less than a week after Nasrallah’s death, indicating that Hezbollah fighters have managed to regroup and that at least part of its chain of command remains intact. .
3/ What is the nature of the Israelis’ mood regarding the ground invasion of Lebanon?
There seems to be a consensus in Israel that a ground invasion was necessary. Israeli officials, politicians from the north and the displaced have been steadfast in their demand that the army ensure, at a minimum, that Hezbollah will not be able to deploy its fighters and weapons near the border in the future.
Unlike the Gaza front, where the military establishment stood behind an agreement to achieve a ceasefire and exchange of detainees that would eventually lead to the withdrawal of forces, there is a semblance of unanimity among the prime minister’s opponents. Benjamin Netanyahu Israel must deploy its soldiers on the ground in Lebanon.
The pager attacks and Nasrallah’s killing were met with joy in Israel, where the Ministry of Education encouraged schools to hold celebrations.
After the demonstration of Israeli power and its deterrence capacity suffered great damage on October 7, 2023, and declined further under Hezbollah’s continued attacks over the following 11 months, it appears that Israel’s military leaders have begun to feel some sense of regaining power as a result of the liquidation of Hezbollah’s leadership and the bombing of a number Large party weapons stores.
But that joy faded somewhat on October 1, when Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, putting it on high alert, the most prominent manifestation of which was a large portion of the population rushing to shelters.
Israel intercepted large numbers of those missiles, but satellite images indicated that at least two air bases were hit, which indicates that Iran may be able to overwhelm Israeli air defenses if it launches another, larger attack.
4/ What are the dangers of a ground invasion of Israel?
One of the main risks for Israel is that it will become stuck in a widening war without achieving its goals. Recent successes do not mean that the Israeli army will achieve an easy victory. Israel has launched ground attacks on Lebanon three times before, in 1978, 1982 and 2006, and none of those invasions accomplished what they planned.
In all of these cases, Israel intended a limited incursion, but in 1978 it gave away swaths of Lebanese territory to an unreliable client, the South Lebanon Army. However, attacks by Palestinian guerrilla groups continued, prompting Israel to invade again 4 years later. In 1982, Israel ended up maintaining a prolonged occupation of larger parts of southern Lebanon, providing the impetus for the formation of Hezbollah, which in turn helped drive Israeli forces out of Lebanon in 2000.
Israel launched a war against Hezbollah in 2006, in response to cross-border raids, in which Hezbollah killed 3 Israeli soldiers and captured two soldiers, and 5 others were killed in a failed rescue attempt. This war lasted 34 days.
As for the current conflict, Israel may have air superiority, but the fighting on the ground in the mountainous region of the south leaves its forces vulnerable to ambushes. A week after the current invasion, at least 11 Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. Israel claims to have killed at least 440 Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah has advantages in addition to its long experience in guerrilla warfare, as its arsenal contains anti-tank missiles and other missiles that are difficult to intercept. He dug tunnels under the border and other tunnels to connect various sites in southern Lebanon, which Israel began to destroy.
As with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is unclear whether Israel will be able to completely neutralize Hezbollah, or sufficiently for its purposes, or how long the operation will last before it is able to achieve its goals.
5/ What is the next step for Israel?
Israel has not publicly expressed a coherent plan to turn its recent military achievements into strategic gains. In particular, it is not clear whether Israel has a vision on how to prevent the resumption of attacks from Lebanon after the end of the incursions and bombings, nor how the government can convince the displaced population to return.
In the absence of a diplomatic solution, neither of Israel’s options is likely to succeed in the safe return of displaced residents in the short term. One of these options is a long-term occupation of Lebanese territory, and the second is an attempt to destroy Hezbollah. The first option would require Israel to expand its occupation to other areas of Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah is rooted among the population.
Such a maneuver, which mimics Israel’s approach in the Gaza Strip, could involve imposing a temporary security system in those areas to track down Hezbollah members and dismantle its extensive institutions. But a repeat of the previous occupation of southern Lebanon would be a drawn-out affair that would likely inflict pain on Israel, in the form of continued soldier deaths, a weaker economy and diplomatic isolation.
As for the second option, even with recent successes, it is not clear that Israel has a better chance of eliminating Hezbollah quickly than it had in 2006, especially given that the Israeli army has been fighting for a year in the Gaza Strip, and is still deployed there and in the West Bank. Western too. What is more likely is that Israel’s efforts will allow it to maintain its operational and tactical advantage while managing threats on the home front for an extended period of time, but without clear results.
6/ What consequences could a ground invasion have on Lebanese political life?
Hezbollah’s internal rivals have long expressed anger at the party’s dominance in Lebanese politics, and may view its unexpected weakening as an opportunity for political gain, but the risks of any such attempt could be high. These players – such as the Lebanese Forces and the Phalange, both Christian parties, or what remains of the Future Movement, a Sunni group – may be encouraged by foreign powers to achieve this goal.
External players may seek to pressure Hezbollah to reach a ceasefire on Israel’s terms or even to force it to surrender its weapons once and for all. Israel may seek to push the Lebanese government to confront what remains of Hezbollah’s power. In particular, it may propose assigning the Lebanese army to subjugate Hezbollah. Whether the Lebanese Army is able to achieve that goal is unclear, and there is justified fear that such a mission would undermine its unity.
In addition, any such attempt could lead to widespread violence, and Hezbollah would almost certainly resist such efforts forcefully, and may mobilize its supporters for street clashes with other social and sectarian groups.
The displacement of more than a million Lebanese, most of whom are Shiites fleeing areas controlled by Hezbollah, would exacerbate sectarian tensions. Those who are left homeless may resort to occupying unoccupied private properties, especially at the beginning of winter. The official Lebanese security services may not be able to manage this situation indefinitely.
