US intervention exposes flaws in Israel’s air defenses; Netanyahu promises to continue attacking Hezbollah (374th day of war)
The United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany are in agreement: Israeli attacks on UN forces in Lebanon must stop. In a joint statement, the four European protagonists argue that Israeli attacks on the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as Unifil, are contrary to international humanitarian law and must stop immediately.
In the statement, London, Rome, Paris and Berlin further argued that Israel had to guarantee the safety of peacekeeping forces at all times. This stance comes after the Unifil mission, which includes hundreds of European soldiers, said it had been repeatedly attacked by the Israeli military in recent days. Israel has asked the UN to withdraw troops from the area as it targets Hezbollah forces nearby.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to ruthlessly attack Hezbollah following the drone attack on a military base in Israel on Sunday, in which four people died. Retaliation will be directed at targets in Beirut. “We will continue to mercilessly attack Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon, including Beirut,” declared the Israeli leader. “All this in accordance with operational considerations. We tested it recently, and we will continue to test it in the coming days.”
With Sunday’s attack, Israel will have convinced itself that the capabilities of Hezbollah, a Shiite group based in Lebanon and supported by Iran, were not as shaken – by successive attacks and the execution of the leader of the group’s military wing – as expected. (Several Israeli and American military experts have assessed that more than 50% of Hezbollah’s military capacity is depleted.) “While the death of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is a major blow to Hezbollah, it is unlikely to have a lasting impact on the group”, corroborates Abhijit Apsingikar, Indian military analyst at GlobalData (a risk analysis consultancy in London), in statements to Expresso.
“The very nature of a radical group like Hezabollah is that it is highly distributed and dispersed. Therefore, in the event that a key element is eliminated, there will always be someone in the chain of command who will fill the gap.” Analyst Abhijit Apsingikar believes, in fact, that Hezbollah has already created a “new command structure in preparation for an imminent ground war with Israel.” Therefore, unless Israel manages to eliminate the entire command structure, or at least a significant part of Hezabollah’s upper echelon, all at once or within a short period, “the group will invariably regroup and reorganize its chain of command.” .
It is “extremely likely” that many of Hezabollah’s combat capabilities will remain intact, says Abhijit Apsingikar. “Lebanon, which is controlled by Hezabollah, shares a long border with Syria, and as such cannot be isolated like Gaza. The group is also strongly supported by Iran, which has continued to supply weapons systems to the group over the past few years, and will also do so in the future. Iran not only enjoys close ties with the Syrian regime, but has also increased its influence in neighboring Iraq. It is therefore in a position to maintain a land corridor and support Hezabollah much more effectively.”
Waging an urban war with a group so well established in Lebanese territory could be a great risk for Israel. According to the US National Counterterrorism Center, the radical group will have around 40,000 fighters and “state-like military capabilities”: rockets, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and even anti-ship missiles. Despite being outdated, they are fully capable of hitting any non-stealthy fighter or support aircraft, except the F-35I Adir.
A woman with a sign with a photo of Naama Levy, one of five Israeli army women kidnapped by Hamas on October 7
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty
The large number of long-range missiles, considered to have a high level of precision, were positioned there by Iran, to help deter a possible Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear installations. Depending on the results of the attacks that are expected to follow between Israel and Iran, at least some of these missiles could be used.
“I believe that Hezbollah is determined to show that it has not been defeated and that it will continue to attempt to engage Israeli forces in small-scale, guerrilla-type operations that include surprise attacks by small units and firing anti-tank missiles and rockets from a base distance that gives them the advantage of surprise”, explains Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, an expert in Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University, to Expresso. The Lebanese group’s ambitions do not include defeating the Israeli attackers, but “making them pay a high price in terms of casualties”, adds the researcher. “For Hezbollah, a ceasefire that allows it to maintain its leadership position in Lebanon and maintain its capabilities to fight Israel will be considered a victory.”
Since Israel essentially renounces the element of surprise, to avoid extensive collateral damage, Hezbollah units are able to prepare and wait for Israel Defense Forces soldiers in advantageous positions, also explains Avraham Levine, military analyst at ‘think Israeli tank’ Alma. “I don’t see Hezbollah as an easy or injured target. It is still the same powerful terrorist army that we all know. The fact that the chain of command has been damaged does not eliminate the ability to fire on Israeli communities or attempt to target approaching IDF forces.”
Above all, as Kelly Grieco, defense analyst at the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at think tank Stimson Center, the group is “designed so that it can survive the loss of leaders and parts of the group.” It is estimated that the militia still has around 150,000 rockets. “The question is whether the pager and walkie-talkie attacks and the loss of many of its top leaders will degrade its ability to use these weapons. Its command and control structure was clearly disrupted by the Israeli attacks. It has lost two leaders in quick succession, and there is not necessarily a clear successor now. It is difficult to imagine that these attacks will not have some immediate impact, but Hezbollah has demonstrated itself to be an adaptable organization.” For example, local units have the authority to act independently in time of war.
Most importantly, says Grieco, “Iran wants Hezbollah to survive,” because “it has invested in this group, and its survival is fundamental to its regional deterrence strategy.”
“Hezbollah has many rockets, missiles and drones; four times more than what Hamas had in its arsenal before October 7th”, quantifies strategy and defense analyst Kelly Grieco. Most of these systems come from Iran, but Hezbollah has also recently begun producing its own weapons. “If these rockets, missiles and drones are fired in large numbers, they could overwhelm Israel’s air and anti-missile defenses. It is unclear how many interceptors Israel still has after fighting a war for more than a year, particularly after intercepting major missile and drone attacks from Iran.”
Carl Court
On Sunday, a Hezbollah drone managed to escape Israel’s well-known air defenses and hit a military canteen when the space was occupied with soldiers dining. Four died and 58 were injured, seven seriously, in a location 64 kilometers south of the border with Lebanon. The drone that hit the cantina was reportedly part of a synchronized attack: three drones flew from Lebanon over the Mediterranean, and although all were initially spotted and two shot down, the other managed to hit its target. According to the newspaper “The Guardian”this failure is the subject of an urgent investigation by the Israel Defense Forces. Everything indicates that Hezbollah has been perfecting its attack strategy. Timing the drone attack with rockets helped the group. Iranian drone models will also be more imperceptible, even to radar, and deliberately fly at lower altitudes.
Iran’s attack a few days ago was also more damaging than initially thought. At least one person died in the West Bank region. Over the weekend, the US announced that it would deploy one of its seven specialized high-altitude terminal area defense (THAAD) systems to Israel, and a crew of nearly 100 US troops.
picture alliance
Other news to highlight:
⇒ The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, considered it unacceptable that United Nations soldiers “could be intentional targets” of the Israeli army and that there is a “strong condemnation” from the European Union in this regard. At the end of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Paulo Rangel deplored that soldiers from the United Nations mission in Lebanon “could be intentional targets” of the Israeli incursion into that territory: “This is unacceptable and deserves strong condemnation” , he defended.
⇒ At least five Palestinians died and four were injured this evening in an Israeli attack on the Hafsa al-Fawqa school, in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip, ten days ago under military siege. After reporting that the injured had been transported to the Kamal Adwan hospital, Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Basal indicated that five people had been killed. This is the second attack on a school in less than 24 hours, following the bombing of a school in Nuseirat, in the center of that Palestinian territory, which left 23 people dead.
⇒ Italian soldiers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (FINUL) detected “a series of incendiary explosive devices along the road leading to the UNP 1-32A forward operating base” of international troops in the south of the country. The discovery of the patrol by the Italian UNIFIL contingent, announced by the Italian Ministry of Defense, comes after recent Israeli attacks on UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, which caused several injuries, and occurred during a logistical movement by the blue helmets.
