Lebanon's Painful History and Israel's War Aims With Hezbollah

Smoke rises amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on September 23, 2024

(Photo: Reuters)

[Editor's Note: Israel rejected proposals on Thursday afternoon for a ceasefire with Hezbollah.] 

It is difficult to understand just what Israel's goals are in attacking Lebanon. The short-term goals are obvious—destroying Hezbollah’s ability to launch rockets at Israel and de-link the Gaza conflict from the one in Lebanon. But the long-term ones are more difficult to determine.

Indeed, there are suggestions that the current assault began by chance when Israeli intelligence felt that its elaborate operation to detonate pagers laced with explosives was in danger of exposure.

So, they decided to trigger the pager bomb assault, followed by the explosions involving walkie-talkies. This killed dozens of people and maimed thousands.

On 23 September, Israel launched an all-out air assault on Hezbollah's positions, killing hundreds of people. The next day, there was an airstrike, no doubt intelligence-based, that killed a number of key military leaders of Hezbollah, including Ibrahim Qubaisi, who headed the group’s missile wing.

Ground Invasion?

According to the New York Times, “Israel has waged one of the most intense air raids in modern warfare” that has led large parts of southern Lebanon in ruins and compelled tens of thousands of people to flee.

Israeli strikes rarely distinguish between civilian and military targets, as in Gaza, and their assumption is that the local populace is complicit in Hezbollah's activities and the outfit's leaders often reside in civilian areas and store their armaments there. So, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) conduct strikes even if scores of non-combatants are casualties.

Hezbollah has struck back at Israel by launching rockets. Some of them have got through the Iron Dome defences and landed in Israeli towns and cities. Casualties are not known, though some injuries to people have been reported.

The next logical step for Israel is a ground assault in southern Lebanon since the aim of their operation is allegedly to ensure the return of their displaced population that had been driven out of northern Israel by Hezbollah's attacks. But this is where Israel may draw the line—a ground war could lead to casualties that would not be welcome back home.

They may opt instead to make a limited incursion and create a 19 km buffer zone as they have done several times in the past, or simply carry on with the aerial bombing campaign.

Latest reports suggest that Israel may indeed be planning a ground invasion since it has called up two brigades of reserve soldiers and sent them north to Lebanon's border. The military’s chief of staff was quoted as telling his forces that the military exercises along the Israel-Lebanon border “are both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Hezbollah for the first time targeted Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile which was shot down by Israel's defences. But though Hezbollah's rocket attacks have come on steadily, they have not attempted a large-scale attack as the Iranians did in April to try and overwhelm Israeli defences.

Reports suggest that the US and France are working on a proposal for a temporary 21-day ceasefire that could provide an opening for further negotiations. This could aid the stalled negotiations between Hamas and Israel in Gaza as well.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, President Biden said, “A diplomatic solution… remains the only path to lasting security to allow the residents from both countries to return to their houses on the border safely.”

The US has said it will not intervene in the current fighting, though it has substantial forces nearby. In April this year, the US, along with the UK, France, and Jordan, did help ward off the massive Iranian attack that used drones and missiles against Israel.

The current round of hostilities actually began a day after the Hamas’ terrorist assault on Israel on 7 October last year. On 8 October, Hezbollah opened a second front by shelling Israel from the north and displacing some 70,000 Israelis from their homes along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Hezbollah has linked its actions to the events in Gaza and said that it will halt its operations if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel rejects this linkage and is focusing on attacks in southern Lebanon to protect its own northern borders.

Israel insists that its actions are necessary to deter Hezbollah, but the question is the extent to which they are willing to escalate the situation because, at some point, it may compel Hezbollah’s main backer — Iran — to jump into the fray. As of now, the Iranians have said that they do not want a major war with Israel and that they are keen on a ceasefire being worked out between Israel and Hamas.

Lebanon's Painful History

Lebanon is today seen as a failed state, but till the 1970s, it was known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East", and the prosperous Beirut was compared to Paris. But since the mid-1970s, the country has been wracked by conflict and civil war.

The civil war of 1975-1990 involved the Palestinians and the Lebanese Muslims backed by Syria and Iran, fighting the Lebanese Christians supported by Israel.

Thereafter came a period of Syrian occupation that lasted 16 years. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation's (PLO) terror attacks on Israel led to an Israeli invasion in 1978, and their control of a 19 km wide security zone south of the Litani River run for some time by the Christian allies of the Israelis. In 1982, there was another Israeli invasion that led to the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon.

These events gave rise to Hezbollah, backed by Iran, which called for an armed struggle against Israel. The country was effectively torn apart even as Hezbollah kept up its cross-border attacks on Israel in the ensuing years. Various UN forces were also deployed in Lebanon at this time, but they often ended up as bystanders watching a volatile country get torn apart.

The capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah triggered the July 2006 Lebanon War that lasted till a UN-brokered ceasefire a month or so later. The Israelis launched a ground invasion accompanied by aerial strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut as well as Lebanese civilian infrastructure. There was widespread destruction and around 1,300 Lebanese people were killed and a million displaced.

The war ended following a UN Security Council resolution that called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the withdrawal of the Israelis from Lebanon. The Israelis did withdraw, but the Hezbollah refused to disarm or stay north of the Litani. Instead, they consolidated themselves in Lebanon even more strongly. No Lebanese government has been able to disarm or prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks on Israel.

Since 2019, Lebanon has been in a state of crisis with a stagnant economy and a severe liquidity crisis. Governments have come and gone and failed to stabilise the situation as things have gone from bad to worse.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to run its “state within a state” and has infiltrated all walks of life in the country. It has set up its own radio, satellite TV, hospitals, news services, and educational facilities and has also expanded its military wing.

With a strength of anywhere up to 1,00,000 fighters, it is considered to be the most heavily armed non-state group in the world.

Just how this latest round of fighting ends is difficult to see. Israel is unlikely to want to be involved in a war of attrition and will avoid a ground attack to the extent it can. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and its Iranian allies, too, are unlikely to want to push the war with Israel beyond a point.

Perhaps an uneasy peace will once again require a UN intervention. As it is, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to arrive in New York on 26 September and address the General Assembly the next day.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)