On the ground it will be another war.
Israel has carried out fierce attacks on Hezbollah in recent days, putting the Lebanese militant group on the defensive and demonstrating its vast superiority in intelligence gathering and technology.
But a ground war between the two sides, if it comes to that, would likely be a different story.
Hezbollah, which has been engaged in border clashes with Israel for nearly a year, has stockpiled a huge arsenal of rockets, drones and anti-tank missiles that it could deploy against Israeli advances.
Hezbollah fighters chant slogans calling for revenge during the funeral of a commander killed by Israel. Photo: WSJ
As in the 2006 war, if Israel sends troops across the border this time, it will have to fight on the battlefield in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah's strengths are more likely to come into play. The conflict could turn into a quagmire, like the war in Gaza.
People with knowledge of Hezbollah say the group has accelerated its war preparations in recent months, expanding its tunnel network in southern Lebanon, redeploying fighters and weapons and smuggling in more weapons.
US officials told the Wall Street Journal that Iran has increased its supply of small arms and rocket launchers, along with long-range guided and unguided missiles, to Hezbollah.
“The south is like a beehive right now,” a former Hezbollah officer told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the group’s military preparations. “Everything the Iranians have, we have.”
The preparations come as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah reach their highest level since 2006. Nearly two decades ago, a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel left 121 Israeli soldiers and more than 40 Israeli civilians dead, along with more than a thousand Lebanese civilians.
Since then, Hezbollah has purchased thousands of new missiles and drones from Iran, and has fitted guidance kits to its older unguided missiles. Hezbollah fighters have also been hardened by the war in neighboring Syria, where they fought alongside regular forces and learned the techniques of large-scale warfare.
Hezbollah's suicide drones could cause a lot of damage to Israeli forces. Photo: Middle East Monitor
Many military experts say Hezbollah is perhaps the world's most heavily armed non-state paramilitary force, with tens of thousands of troops and a huge arsenal of missiles.
In 2006, Israeli officials estimated Hezbollah had about 12,000 missiles and rockets. Today, according to Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst familiar with Hezbollah, the force's stockpile has grown to 150,000 missiles and rockets, a figure that is roughly in line with Israeli and Western estimates.
Israel is unlikely to avoid "head-scratching"
Among Hezbollah's most dangerous new weapons is an Iranian-made anti-tank guided missile called Almas - Persian for diamond - that allows it to strike with much greater precision than when it last fought Israel in 2006.
Military analysts believe the Almas anti-tank guided missile is a reverse-engineered version of Israel's Spike missile, which was likely captured by Hezbollah and sent to Iran in 2006.
Comparable to other advanced anti-tank missiles such as the US Javelin, which Ukraine used to destroy Russian armored vehicles in 2022, Almas helps Hezbollah hit targets more precisely than in previous years, when they relied mainly on unguided missiles.
In Hezbollah's first use of the weapon in January, video footage from the missile itself showed it flying up from southern Lebanon and then crashing into a hilltop filled with radars and other military equipment in northern Israel.
The Almas missile (far right), on display in Tehran in 2023, is an anti-tank guided missile system currently used by Hezbollah. Photo: Zuma Press
Hezbollah's upgraded drones have also precision-strike several Israeli military assets in recent months, including a radar surveillance balloon called Sky Dew in May and a multimillion-dollar anti-drone system called Drone Dome in June.
The Wall Street Journal further reported that last November, Russia's private military company Wagner planned to supply Hezbollah with an advanced SA-22 air defense system.
It is unclear whether the air defense system has been delivered, but on the offensive front, Hezbollah could replicate the tactics used by Russia in Ukraine, launching swarms of missiles and drones to overwhelm or disable Israel’s air defenses and attack military bases or its ports and power grids.
Israeli officials predict that hundreds could die in such attacks. “It would not be easy if there was a full-scale war,” said Assaf Orion, a retired brigadier general in the Israeli army. “There is no way we will not get our heads broken.”
Hezbollah and the Art of Asymmetric Warfare
Of course, despite being better equipped and more experienced, Hezbollah is unlikely to be able to overpower Israel or defeat it in a conventional war. Moreover, Israeli airstrikes over the past 11 months have inflicted casualties on Hezbollah’s leadership and have likely degraded some of Hezbollah’s military capabilities, including missile launch sites and weapons depots.
Israel's overwhelming advantage in surveillance and intelligence operations was demonstrated last week when it was reported to have carried out a sophisticated plot in which thousands of Hezbollah members' pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated, causing thousands of casualties.
The Israeli military, of course, also has far more advanced weapons, including the F-35 super-fighter and a layered air defense system. Israel’s air superiority would allow it to launch devastating airstrikes and cripple civilian infrastructure in Lebanon, as it did in 2006.
But Israel still faces a strategic disadvantage. Hezbollah would not seek to win a war with Israel in the conventional sense. Instead, it would aim to bog down Israeli forces in a war of attrition, much as Hamas, a smaller and less well-armed group than Hezbollah, managed to survive Israel’s 11-month offensive in Gaza.
“Israel can cause havoc in Lebanon, there is no question about that,” said Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese army general. “But Hezbollah has weapons for asymmetric warfare. They demonstrated their skills with anti-tank missiles in 2006. And they are better trained.”
Along the coast of Beirut (Lebanon) is a sculpture commemorating Hezbollah's water commandos who fought against Israel in the 1980s. Photo: WSJ
An Israeli reservist who fought for two weeks in Lebanon in 2006 recalled how Hezbollah fighters operated in small groups, hiding in villages and waiting for Israeli troops to arrive, rather than engaging in open fighting in areas more vulnerable to air strikes.
Although the two sides occasionally engaged in direct combat, Hezbollah fighters would often hide and attack Israeli troops from a distance with anti-tank missiles from a distance of 5 to 6 kilometers. Using guerrilla tactics, Hezbollah inflicted significant casualties on the Israelis, with their anti-tank missiles burning 20 tanks and killing 24 crew members.
Hezbollah also fired rockets into northern Israel at the time, some 150 a day, killing eight people in Haifa. They also used Iranian-made anti-ship missiles to hit an Israeli warship in the Mediterranean.
And according to an Israeli soldier who fought in 2006, this Lebanese militia is even more formidable now than before. “Hezbollah then is nothing compared to Hezbollah today,” the veteran stressed the pitfalls that await the Israeli army across the border with Lebanon.
Quang Anh
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/nhung-cam-bay-nao-dang-cho-israel-o-lebanon-post313762.html
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