Beirut- The confrontation between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation forces is described as a “war of tactics and specific strikes,” and it is getting hotter day by day. Since the eighth of last October, when Announce Hizb allah His battle is within the framework of the Front to Support the Gaza Strip.
As Israel continued its raids on the border area and civilian facilities, reaching as deep as villages in the Jezzine district and Iqlim al-Tuffah this week, the party used new weapons of the type of incendiary missiles that it fired at the forests of the “Branit” colony as a response to its burning of the Lebanese forests. It recorded the launch of 3 attack drones on new gatherings behind Israeli sites bThe occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.
clash Alternative
In exchange for Hezbollah targeting – on Sunday – Israeli artillery positions in Dishon with missiles, Israel escalates by attacking homes and border residential neighborhoods, Its aircraft raided Hezbollah military targets, including infrastructure, military buildings, and missile launch sites.
As is the case in Gaza, Israel hides the extent of its losses on the northern front, humanly, logistically, and militarily. In contrast, Hezbollah’s toll reached about 120 martyrs, according to its successive statements, while about 23 civilians were martyred in southern Lebanon.
Since the outbreak of the confrontation, about 91 villages in southern Lebanon have been subjected to about 1,768 attacks, and the border and southern villages recorded the displacement of more than 64,000 of their residents, according to the United Nations Development Program report on December 19.
Politically, American newspapers talk about efforts led by Washington with Israel and Lebanon, to control tensions and restore sustainable calm on the borders, and Paris, supported by Washington, continues its effort to implement Lebanon’s Resolution 1701, on the basis of Hezbollah’s withdrawal from southern Litani and the establishment of a buffer zone; What prompted the caretaker prime minister? Najib MikatiTo say that Lebanon is ready to implement the resolution on the condition that Israel withdraws from its occupied territories.
To read and analyze the repercussions and expected scenariosUpper Egypt between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation forces, Al Jazeera Net hosts both From the writer and political analyst Hussein Ayoub, the researcher and expert in international relations, Ali Fadlallah, and the military and strategic expert, retired Brigadier General Hisham Jaber…
Meanings of escalation
Military expert Hisham Jaber finds that Hezbollah is responding to Israel’s attempts to lure it into war, by killing civilians and expanding operations to an area wider than 5 kilometers, but Israel realizes that completely breaking the rules of engagement with Hezbollah requires direct American military support, while the party’s behavior does not give it a chance. Forcing Washington to intervene.
International relations expert Ali Fadlallah believes that what is happening is a war of tactics between Hezbollah and Israel. As for political analyst Hussein Ayoub, he finds that each party is trying to produce equations that do not disturb the greater equation, as long as the actual rules of engagement in force before October 8 have been completely undermined, according to two indicators:
- Israel is giving signals that it has the upper hand in the field.
- Hezbollah is giving signals to Israel that it has reached readiness, which makes it capable of presenting many surprises on the field.
Hussein Ayoub asserts that Israel has no interest in escalation, and is likely to be inclined to completely extinguish the front, while Hezbollah is sending a message to Israel saying, “The matter is for me, not for you, and if you want this front to stop, there must be a ceasefire in Gaza, as a primary goal of the battle on the fronts to support Gaza.”
The south and Syria
On the other hand, political analyst Hussein Ayoub believes that the Israeli occupation is trying to benefit from many field elements, “when it was killing Hezbollah in Syria with Israeli raids before the war.” Al-Aqsa floodThe party was responding with the northern front, and this was its state in the recent years that followed its involvement in the Syrian war.”
Today, according to the same analyst, the Israeli is benefiting from the reality of the border clash in order to have a loose hand in Syria, and thus more than 10 Hezbollah deaths have occurred so far in Syria. Therefore, the Hezbollah party’s response was part of the ongoing clash, according to the same spokesman, who explains the matter by saying that Hezbollah lacked God for the element of initiative, while the Israeli benefited from an equation previously established by Hezbollah, to try to undermine the party’s elements in Syria, by expanding the field of engagement and its equations.
Political and military messages
On the other hand, military expert Hisham Jaber believes that Hezbollah has changed its tactics by using new weapons, drones, guided missiles, and air defense weapons, especially since “what bothers Israel most are the anti-armor missiles that it fires at its northern settlements.”
Politically, Hussein Ayoub finds that there is no value in what is said about Resolution 1701 and the buffer zone, and that the efforts do not go beyond the limits of French volunteering to transmit Israeli messages. He says, “The international and regional climate indicates that there will be no serious discussion of any equation before the end of the Gaza war to build the requirements in light of its results.”
For his part, Ali Fadlallah believes that Hezbollah’s escalation in the type of its operations confirms that the efforts to control the front according to the equation of its withdrawal from the south of the Litani are not concerned with it, on the basis that what the “July 2006 War” did not achieve, Israel will not achieve in the 2023 battle.
The international relations expert believes that what stops Hezbollah is France’s position in support of Israel, after it was trying to meet Hezbollah halfway and achieve its conditions and demands, through its previous support for its Lebanese presidential candidate, Suleiman Franjieh.
Fadlallah adds in the same context, “After the Gaza war turned into a regional conflict, Paris entered the bidding battle in support of Israeli interests, and French President Emmanuel Macron described for the first time in the media Hezbollah as a terrorist group, about two years after he and his administration sought to favor the party at the expense of other Lebanese parties.” .
Escalation scenarios
Regarding the direction of escalation, Hisham Jaber links the fate of southern Lebanon to the Gaza war, and to what will result next month as what may be the last opportunity that Washington granted to Israel to achieve a military victory.
The same expert believes that the confrontation between the party and Israel will not exceed the existing ceiling, “because what Israel did not achieve militarily against Hamas in Gaza, it will not achieve against Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
As for Ali Fadlallah, he finds that the decision for war and peace rests with America and Israel, and he says: “The possibility of the confrontation remaining within the current rules of engagement is equivalent in proportion to the possibility of the outbreak of war, for which both parties are preparing logistically and militarily as if it would occur tomorrow.”
But Hezbollah, in the opinion of Ali Fadlallah, is not dealing with the battle as a liberation war, after Hamas established the equation of “washing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons,” despite its strategic and regional consequences.
On the other hand, Hussein Ayoub expects that the reality on the ground will take on a more heated character in the coming weeks, which may precede a ceasefire. He says, “The Israeli side will try to present an image whose main function is to demoralize the Lebanese, meaning the ability to destroy as it does in Gaza.”
It will happen, he added, “especially in the villages of the front Lebanese border opposite the border strip, and because he acts there on the basis that 90% of those present there are military targets, he shows his willingness to bear the burdens of targeting that may affect civilian targets.”
As for the border villages, Israel will be very cautious, according to the same speaker, “because it does not want the war to escalate further under the American restrictions on it.”
The same analyst also believes that Netanyahu, from the first day of the war, has coveted and aspired to an American mandate to discipline Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, “but the American insists on not expanding the battle and deviating from its current rules.”
The political analyst concludes that the occupancy scenario will continue, with the ability to curb the possibility of a major war that the Americans and Iranians do not want yet.
