Israel’s ground offensive into Lebanon
Source: By Alind Chauhan: The Indian Express
Israeli forces launched a “limited localised” ground offensive into Lebanon to target Hezbollah. The incursion marks the fourth time that Israeli soldiers have publicly entered Lebanese soil in nearly 50 years. It is also the first since Israel’s 34-day war in the country in 2006.
Events leading up to the war
The roots of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel go back to 1982 when the Jewish state invaded southern Lebanon to militarily and politically weaken the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The PLO at the time aimed to liberate Palestine through an armed struggle against Israel, and its fighters used southern Lebanon as a base to carry out attacks on Israel occasionally.
The invasion, which turned into an 18-year-long Israeli occupation, led to the formation of Hezbollah. Backed by Iran, the armed group’s goal was to push Israel out of Lebanese territory. Owing to Hezbollah’s war of attrition (and the growing unpopularity of the occupation among the Israeli public), the Jewish state was forced to withdraw in 2000. The militant group labelled this as the first Arab victory against Israel.
However, Hezbollah’s armed struggle against the Jewish state continued. That was because the group considered the withdrawal incomplete, “referring to the disputed Shebaa Farms area, and to Israel’s continued holding of Lebanese prisoners,” according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The trigger and following events
On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol on the border, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. The group demanded the release of Lebanese prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldiers. Then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the kidnapping an “act of war” and promised a “very painful and far-reaching response”. He also vowed to free the captives and remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon forever.
By 13 July Israel began its retaliatory offensive against Hezbollah, and it soon became clear that the assault went well beyond what [Hassan] Nasrallah [then chief of Hezbollah] and the company anticipated. Within a day Lebanon was blockaded from the sea, and the Beirut airport was hit, effectively closing it. Shortly after Nasrallah’s offices were bombed on 14 July, Hezbollah released a recorded statement from Nasrallah that was far from conciliatory: “You wanted an open war, and we are heading for an open war. We are ready for it,”” wrote Augustus Richard Norton in Hezbollah: A Short History (2007).
The militant group responded by launching missiles into Israel, most of which were Katyusha missiles first used by the Soviet Union in World War II. On 16 July, eight employees of the Israel Railways were killed by direct rocket hits on the Haifa train depot. Other northern Israeli cities were also hit, including Safed, Nazareth and Afula. A total of 6,000 homes were damaged in Israel during the war, which lasted for just 34 days, according to a 2011 report by the Associated Press.
Israeli air strikes destroyed more than 15,000 homes, 640 km of roads, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools, and two hospitals in Lebanon, a 2011 report by the Associated Press said. “Israeli warplanes launched some 7,000 bomb and missile strikes in Lebanon,” according to the Human Rights Watch report.
In the end, Israel lost 119 soldiers and 43 civilians while between 250 and 500 Hezbollah fighters died. Lebanese civilians were the worst affected, with more than 1,000 killed.
The ceasefire was implemented on 14 August 2006, three days after the UN Security Council unanimously approved Security Council Resolution 1701 to end the hostilities.
Hezbollah comes on top
Israel failed to meet its goal of eradicating Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. The country’s intelligence agencies were criticised for underestimating the military capabilities of the militant group. The Israeli-government-appointed Winograd Commission found that the government did not consider options for de-escalation, and some of its goals for the military offensive were unclear.
The commission’s report “placed the primary responsibility for the campaign’s failures on the prime minister, the then minister of defence and the then (outgoing) chief of staff,” according to a report by The Guardian.
Although Hezbollah suffered some major losses, it was hailed for surviving the Israeli assault, despite the asymmetrical power balance. The group’s top leader Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah had achieved a “divine, historic and strategic victory”.
The legacy of the war
In the years after the war, Israel examined its military and intelligence services. The country’s military also undertook a reimagining of what a future war in Lebanon could look like, Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute, told Foreign Policy.
In 2019, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unveiled a new operating concept known as the Momentum Plan. With Hezbollah regarded as the country’s primary foe, these revised plans envisioned the development of expansive target lists to allow for the rapid destruction of the group’s military capabilities in the event of a future conflict,” according to a report by Foreign Policy.
Hezbollah also learnt lessons from the war. Since 2006, the group has expanded its arsenal, which includes precision-guided munitions and drones.
Levitt said, “They built extensive, extensive infrastructure, tunnels, pillboxes, storage facilities, caches of weapons, rockets, and homes.” Hezbollah is believed to have constructed an extensive tunnel system which is even more extensive than that used by Hamas in Gaza.
Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias, told Foreign Policy that after 2006, the group was crafted to be “more of an army”.