Israeli jets carried out massive airstrikes across southern Lebanon on Monday, the latest escalation in its attempt to force Hezbollah to stop its 11 months of fire on northern Israel.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is “destroying thousands of missiles and rockets aimed at Israeli cities and Israeli citizens.”
If the terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, insists on continuing to launch rockets and drones at Israel to demonstrate solidarity with Hamas — a decision that has cost his organization and Lebanese citizens dearly — Israel’s current attacks will prove advantageous in the event of a ground invasion of Lebanon.
Monday’s strikes are the latest in a series of blows against the Shiite group. An Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday killed top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and other leaders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force.
That operation came days after thousands of communications devices, used mainly by Hezbollah members, exploded in different parts of Lebanon, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Lebanon blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks from the IDF’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv on September 22, 2024. (Screen capture/GPO)
As Israel ramps up the pressure, it is hoping that Nasrallah and his Iranian patrons will decide that the price of their ideological and practical support for Hamas is becoming way too high. Nasrallah has insisted on the linkage between the war in Gaza and rocket fire on Israel’s north; now Jerusalem is doing everything it can to break the connection between the two theaters.
Israeli leaders have not been coy about their plans. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF chief Herzi Halevi, and other officials all issued statements last Wednesday indicating that a “new phase” of the conflict was underway.
“The center of gravity is moving north. We are diverting forces, resources, and energy toward the north,” Gallant told Israeli Air Force personnel at the Ramat David Airbase.
Earlier last week, the security cabinet also updated its official goals for the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza to include the “safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”
For months, Israel hoped that a hostage deal with Hamas would bring about at least a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon. It now evidently recognizes that the chances for a deal that is acceptable to both sides is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, especially with IDF forces effectively standing in place on the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors and not applying any military pressure on Hamas.
Now Israel is applying increasing pressure on Hezbollah, while leaving space for Nasrallah to say he has had enough.
People watch the speech of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as they sit in a cafe in the southern suburbs of Beirut, September 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
If the strikes on Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal do not push Nasrallah to end his attacks, Israel has further steps it could take to ramp up the pressure. It could carry out massive strikes on Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold in southern Beirut, and it could even start to target Lebanese state infrastructure to try to force its weak northern neighbor to fulfill its obligation to prevent attacks from its territory.
But if Nasrallah still does not back down, it’s hard to see how Israel has any choice other than ordering some sort of ground operation.
If that happens, Israel has also gone some way in preparing the ground for an invasion. The beeper attacks — if Israel is indeed behind them — rendered Hezbollah’s tactical communications system irrelevant, which will make it much harder for commanders to give orders to fighters and receive accurate reports from the field.
It also took out hundreds, if not thousands, of fighters from the terror group’s ranks within 48 hours.
Hezbollah’s main deterrent against Israel is its rocket and missile array, especially its long-range ones. The more Israel is able to destroy those capabilities ahead of time, the less Israel’s home front will suffer, and the chances that Hezbollah is able to hit strategic sites in Israel will go down.
According to IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, the IAF struck some 1,300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Monday, including “cruise missiles that can reach hundreds of kilometers, heavy rockets with a 1,000-kilogram warhead, medium-range rockets that reach a range of up to 200 kilometers, short-range rockets, and armed unmanned aerial vehicles.”
US President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with the members of his cabinet and first lady Jill Biden, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, September 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Meanwhile, the US Biden administration is doing whatever it can behind the scenes to get Hezbollah to agree to a negotiated ceasefire, after almost a year of efforts have borne no fruit.
But it has not used all of the potential tools in its kit. Iran, which could order Hezbollah to back off if it wanted to, is perfectly content watching Lebanese citizens suffer greatly, as long as Israelis suffer moderately.
What it fears, however, is direct attacks on its territory and its forces. The US has refused to use that threat, though it could be the best chance to forestall the war in Lebanon that the White House has tried to head off.
Recent US threats against Iran seem to have worked. After Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran — in what was widely believed to have been an Israeli operation — the US warned of a “serious risk of consequences for Iran’s economy and the stability of its newly elected government” if it attacks Israel. So far, Tehran has chosen not to attack Israel directly, in contrast to its unprecedented strike in April.
With the US unlikely to issue a similar message, and Tehran unlikely to rein Hezbollah in without such a threat, the decision on the next stage of the fight remains in the hands of Nasrallah. If he insists on continuing down the path he embarked on 11 months ago, he will witness the next steps in the IDF’s escalation ladder, which culminates in a ground invasion.
pdcc