The final time Israel went to warfare with Hizbollah in 2006, it threatened to “flip Lebanon’s clock again 20 years” and drive the militant motion from the border. When the battle ended a month later, Hizbollah had been battered and bruised however its fighters remained in place.
Again-to-back assassinations of senior figures in Hizbollah and its ally Hamas final month intensified fears that the arch foes — which have traded blows with growing power since Hamas’s October 7 assault — are as soon as extra sliding in the direction of all-out warfare.
These fears got renewed impetus on Sunday as they engaged of their greatest alternate of fireplace since 2006, with Israel launching a wave of air strikes in southern Lebanon, as Hizbollah fired greater than 300 rockets at Israel in retaliation for final month’s assassination of Fuad Shukr, one in every of Hizbollah’s most senior figures.
A full-blown battle would pit the Center East’s most subtle army, bolstered by superior western {hardware} and weaponry, towards arguably the world’s most closely armed non-state actor. The capabilities of each Israel and Iran-backed Hizbollah have additionally developed since that conflagration 18 years in the past, which threatens to make the following battle that might in all probability attract others much more damaging.
“Dynamics have modified since 2006. What would make this time worse is {that a} warfare at present wouldn’t be a battle simply between Israel and Hizbollah”, with different members of the Iran-led “axis of resistance” turning into concerned, stated Sanam Vakil, head of the Center East programme on the Chatham Home think-tank.
This group that features Yemen’s Houthi rebels and militias in Iraq and Syria, in addition to Hamas, is “working and coordinating in a transnational means, which means a warfare wouldn’t be restricted to a selected geography and would drag in and impression the broader Center East”, she added.
Israel is among the many world’s best-equipped armies, equal to Nato requirements and with US-made weaponry corresponding to F35 fighter jets in addition to top-of the-range air defences and different new tools. It has additionally cultivated a well-developed home arms business that produces its personal tanks, armoured automobiles, air defences, missiles and drones.
However Lebanon-based Hizbollah, which analysts estimate has wherever between 20,000 to 40,000 fighters, additionally presents a extra formidable power than it did in 2006. It now possesses a much more voluminous and complex arsenal of missiles and drones, a lot of it supplied by Iran, to create a preventing power that’s considerably superior to Hamas, the militant group that Israel has been battling in Gaza for 10 months.
The US-based CSIS think-tank estimates Hizbollah has between 120,000 and 200,000 projectiles, together with precision-guided missiles and armed drones in addition to anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
Hizbollah can be now in a position to strike throughout Israel and precisely calibrate strategic targets — which means that no city or metropolis could be secure.
Hizbollah has saved up a barrage towards Israel for the reason that October 7 assault that ignited Israel’s warfare in Gaza, with the 2 sides buying and selling near-daily assaults.
It has despatched surveillance drones deep into Israel, which penetrated the nation’s subtle air defences to seize footage of army websites. Hizbollah additionally used an Iran-made surface-to-air missile for the primary time in June, compelling Israeli fighter jets to retreat.
Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese analyst near Hizbollah, stated the group has deployed about 5,000 missiles from its stockpile since October whereas protecting lots of its most superior projectiles in reserve, together with longer-range weapons. He estimated the group had used simply 10 per cent of its army, logistical and personnel capability over that point.
Hizbollah is opaque about its arsenal to take care of a “strategic ambiguity” however claims to have some 100,000 fighters. Its forces even have battlefield expertise after being deployed alongside Russian and Iranian forces as a part of Syria’s civil warfare that erupted in 2011.
Israel additionally presents a special proposition to 2006, with new know-how and a higher resolve hardened by the ferocity of October 7. Israel’s leaders have warned that, if all-out battle erupted, its army actions would go far tougher and deeper than they did in 2006, with devastating penalties for Lebanon.
Israel is the world’s greatest recipient of US overseas support, which comes principally within the type of army help. The long-standing US dedication to take care of what it describes as Israel’s “qualitative army edge” ensures the Jewish state has a technological benefit over its neighbours.
Which means it has entry to essentially the most superior American weaponry, together with the F35 fighter jets. Washington has supplied at the very least $12.5bn in army support for the reason that October 7 assault.
Israel can be the one Center East state with nuclear weapons — though it doesn’t publicly acknowledge the very fact.
The nation has in recent times been in a position to make use of its superior air energy and its intelligence community to launch tons of of strikes towards Hizbollah and Iranian-affiliated targets in neighbouring Syria.
It has killed practically 400 Hizbollah fighters since October 7 — greater than the quantity killed within the 2006 warfare — and launched strikes into Iran, Syria and Yemen.
Regardless of this, analysts say it could face a number of threats and challenges if it launched a floor offensive into Lebanon.
“Israel’s army is technologically subtle, the query is, what kind of warfare we’re speaking about?” stated Seth Jones, senior vice-president at CSIS. If Israeli floor forces moved into southern Lebanon, “that’s a special story, as a result of Hizbollah is on terrain it is aware of very nicely, preventing a defensive warfare”.
Israel would additionally face the danger that its a lot vaunted air defences — thought of the very best within the area and together with its Iron Dome system — could be overwhelmed.
That risk could be exacerbated if Iran and the members of its resistance axis intervened in help of Hizbollah by launching their very own assaults from numerous fronts. The Houthis, as an illustration, have fired a number of missiles and drones at Israel since October, together with one final month that killed an Israeli in Tel Aviv.
Then, even with its technological superiority, Israel could be susceptible. Within the occasion of an all-out warfare, Jones stated, its army would “have the ability to defend some very particular areas, however not, let’s say, elements of Tel Aviv”.
Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Center East safety on the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research, stated that in 2006, Hizbollah fired a mean of 124 rockets a day for 34 days. “This time, in accordance with western intelligence and Israeli analysts, Hizbollah would have the ability to fireplace as much as 3,000 a day for 10 days, probably extra,” he defined.
Even Israel’s army acknowledges that Hizbollah has the capability to fireplace 1000’s of projectiles a day.
However — because the obvious success of Israel’s pre-emptive strikes in limiting Hizbollah’s barrage on Sunday steered — one in every of Hizbollah’s challenges could be defending its missile launch pads. These are comparatively static and need to be on the floor to be fired, whereas Israeli jets swarm overhead.
The comparatively excessive casualty price amongst Hizbollah fighters since October 7 has been partially because of Israel’s potential to focus on a launch website seconds after it has fired a missile, three individuals aware of the group’s operations stated.
Hizbollah has additionally not demonstrated a capability to shoot down Israel’s fighter jets, though it has taken down a number of drones over the previous few months, together with Israel’s Hermes 900.
Matthew Savill, analysis director at Rusi, a London-based defence and safety think-tank, stated Israel underestimated Hizbollah in 2006, when it comes to each the motion’s professionalism and its capabilities.
“What they’d in 2006 was first rate techniques, realizing the territory and plenty of anti-tank weapons in order that they had been in a position to shock Israeli armour,” Savill stated. “It appears unlikely that the Israelis could be underprepared this time.”
It’s not solely Hizbollah that Israel has to fret about. Iran has vowed to avenge Israel’s suspected assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which got here the day after Israel killed Shukr in Beirut.
Iran and Israel traded missile and drone strikes in April, after the Islamic republic mounted its first direct assault on Israel from Iranian soil in retaliation for the killing of a number of of its army commanders in Syria. However the responses had been thought of “calibrated” to keep away from additional escalation.
Given the geographical distance between Israel and Iran, any direct battle between the foes would primarily be an air warfare.
Iran, beneath heavy sanctions, lacks the traditional weaponry to problem Israel, with few plane belongings, barring a couple of ageing jets acquired earlier than the 1979 Islamic revolution however that it has been unable to service.
It has, nonetheless, constructed up more and more subtle home missile and drone functionality, and depends on uneven warfare, mobilising its regional proxies and its 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guards power.
Certainly, in accordance with CSIS, Iran has the Center East’s “largest and most numerous missile arsenal” made up of 1000’s of ballistic and cruise missiles, some able to putting Israel and so far as south-east Europe.
Israel insisted final month that its “defensive methods are excellent”, including that it had “worldwide companions who’ve elevated their forces within the area to help us towards the threats”.
US President Joe Biden has redeployed forces in the Middle East as a part of efforts to guard Israel from an assault by Iran or its proxies.
But with tensions excessive and the dangers of the battle spiralling uncontrolled growing with each incident, all events danger paying a excessive value.
“The issue for the US and others is there are nonetheless susceptible forces unfold out over the Center East,” Savill stated. “That is all in regards to the dangers that persons are ready to bear.”
