After years of demanding that Lebanon and international forces do their job to protect the security zone established by UN Resolution 1701 in August 2006, Israel decided not only to occupy this zone on its own, but take the war against Hezbollah north of the Litani River. While Israel had initially requested the evacuation of civilians and international military personnel only to the natural border of the river, the Ministry of Defense on Tuesday extended its request for evacuation to the Awali River, 30 kilometers further to the north.
The decision has its military logic: Israel intends to isolate as many Hezbollah troops as possible from the rest of the country and, above all, from a possible supply of weapons to Iran via Syria. By widening the objective to the Awali – and let’s not exclude that they will soon also threaten the Damour River, even further to the north – Israel limits the space of operations. The idea would be to bomb the bridges of these rivers to make passage impossible, both in one direction and the other. In other words, that the Hezbollah members unable to flee…nor can they receive reinforcements from the north or east.
In this way, the occupation of the territory would be more manageable and the number of enemies to defeat more limited. This is a lesson that Israel learned precisely from its failed invasion attempt in 2006, when Hezbollah managed to largely repel its attack and was in practice able to continue bombarding the northern Galilee with varying degrees of force. intensity, depending on its own interests and those of Iran.
IDF troops have been carrying out secret raids and infiltrating the area since October last year, they have rough knowledge of what awaits them and they are also aware of Hezbollah’s confusion.
Headless and with virtually no possibility of communication after the attack on the locators and walkie talkiesIsrael understands that the terrorist group has no possibility of coordination in the face of an attack of this type and that each unit will have to wage war more or less alone.
The 98th Division has withdrawn from Gaza and is currently taking the initiative in the advances through southern Lebanona development about which there is virtually no news, since Israel maintains absolute silence on the issue.
Diplomatic consequences
Even understanding the military objectives, the diplomatic challenge of extending the war to the Awali could have consequences. It is true that the UN cannot demand much from Israel after years of failure to carry out its work in the region… but it is also true that there are thousands of active international soldiers -650 of them, Spaniards- are trying to pacify the security zone to the extent of their limited possibilities and in the face of constant pressure from Hezbollah.
Iran threatens “a crushing response” if Israel dares to react.
The call United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) It retreated last Monday north of the Litani in less than ideal conditions, but it remains unclear whether it will follow the Israeli mandate to flee further north. Basically, because they are not under the orders of Israel but of the UN, the decision will therefore have to be taken at the highest body.
Staying in an area that is going to be bombed before a ground invasion and with the risk of being isolated from the rest of the country if Israel destroys the bridges would be suicide. Abandoning the mission in the face of force would set a bad precedent.
For the moment, beyond the continued demands for a ceasefire which Israel will of course not respect, even less after the Iranian attack on Tel Aviv this Tuesday, the international community seems more concerned about save its citizens from the region and recover its citizens. live troops rather than walking around with challenges and ultimatums.
It is therefore understandable that, If Israel says to move north of the Awali, it will…and if you tell them that north of Damour (and we are already talking about 70 kilometers from the Israeli border), they will also follow the order, without excluding that they will directly withdraw from the country given the failure of their mission.
Lebanon, a normalized state
What is clear from these warnings – Israel has not yet reached Litani, even as it continues to advance city by city, dismantling Hezbollah cells and simultaneously bombing the group’s targets in the capital Beirut – is that the idea of a specific foray that I was perhaps too optimistic about.
Israel is not going to limit itself, as it promised the United States, to taking certain towns on the other side of the border to prevent projectile fire from these positions. Israel will attempt to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and this will require more time and more military action.
In no way does it appear that their goal is to occupy the area or annex it, as seemed to be the case in 1980, when Menachem Begin invaded part of a country in the midst of a civil war, as a preemptive measure. It is likely that, as part of his “escalation to deescalate” doctrine, Netanyahu is seeking a military defeat of Hezbollah of such magnitude that it becomes a military defeat. a force irrelevant to the future of Lebanon.
In this way, the government in Beirut – about which almost nothing is known nowadays – could act against the terrorists and establish something akin to a normalized state with which to reach an agreement. solid peace agreementas was done at the time with Egypt and Jordan.
The elimination of Hamas and Hezbollah, according to this doctrine, would be only a step towards the normalization of Palestine and Lebanon, probably with the help of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Arab Emirates. united. The next step would be to achieve something similar with Iraq and Syria, two other failed states where, through the so-called Axis of Resistance, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards operate freely where the Islamic State used to do this. The final step would be to defeat the Ayatollahs’ own regime through a similar process.
Shiite fundamentalist terror
Netanyahu is aware of how little popular support Khamenei’s regime enjoys and knows that to win the war, it would be enough to strike the existing government and allow progressive forces to take power. The United States is not at all sure that this will happen, but it supports its ally for the moment. If the predictable happens counterattack on Tehranit will not be like April: he will defer to the leaders and seek to deactivate the nuclear program before it is too late.
IDF tanks on Israel’s northern border.
Reuters
The infiltration of Mossad, demonstrated by the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, in the Iranian capital the day before the inauguration of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, would do the rest.
But here things get extremely complicated. Although the Saudis and probably the rest of the Arab countries condemned the attack and its consequences, they would not view such an event negatively. fall of the Shiite regimethe other great enemy of the region with Israel.
The position of Russia about this. Putin has just signed a military collaboration agreement with the Ayatollah regime, which provided him with ammunition, bombs and short- and medium-range missiles for his war in Ukraine.
Will Russia, in the current situation, dare to enter the conflict to help its ally or will it also look away, pretending to be scandalized? Is it worth openly confronting a military power like Israel after what it has shown over the past two months?
The logic would be to doubt it. After two and a half years of war in Ukraine, Putin has not yet managed to capture the entire Donbass and his army has lost around half a million men dead and wounded. He doesn’t seem to be able to go much further, or at least that’s how Israel understands it, of course. Time will tell if he is right or wrong.
