After 26 years, Israel wades into Lebanon to strike Hezbollah; pressure on Beirut grows
Israeli officials are drawing parallels to Hamas's buildup in Gaza, emphasising the difficulty and necessity of targeting Hezbollah's deeply entrenched assets in residential areas
Israel's military operations against Hezbollah are expanding beyond its northern border, with the IDF preparing to strike Hezbollah bases within Lebanon, including in Beirut, in response to the group's significant military buildup over two decades, which now includes advanced rockets, UAVs, and FPV drones that challenge the Iron Dome. This escalation, characterized by the recent targeted killing of a Hezbollah missile force head and the creation of buffer zones along the border to protect Israeli civilians from daily drone attacks, is occurring despite American pressure to avoid wider regional conflict, as Israeli officials warn they will act independently if Iran's proxies are not contained, drawing parallels to Hamas's build-up in Gaza. While Israel claims to issue evacuation warnings before strikes and urges civilians to distance themselves from Hezbollah positions deeply entrenched in residential areas, civilian casualties continue to occur, highlighting the tragic difficulty in separating military and civilian spaces as the conflict deepens with no immediate prospect of a ceasefire.
Israel's military operations against Hezbollah are expanding beyond its northern border, with the IDF preparing to strike Hezbollah bases within Lebanon, including in Beirut, in response to the group's significant military buildup over two decades, which now includes advanced rockets, UAVs, and FPV drones that challenge the Iron Dome. This escalation, characterized by the recent targeted killing of a Hezbollah missile force head and the creation of buffer zones along the border to protect Israeli civilians from daily drone attacks, is occurring despite American pressure to avoid wider regional conflict, as Israeli officials warn they will act independently if Iran's proxies are not contained, drawing parallels to Hamas's build-up in Gaza. While Israel claims to issue evacuation warnings before strikes and urges civilians to distance themselves from Hezbollah positions deeply entrenched in residential areas, civilian casualties continue to occur, highlighting the tragic difficulty in separating military and civilian spaces as the conflict deepens with no immediate prospect of a ceasefire.
Israel's military operations against Hezbollah are expanding beyond its northern border, with the IDF preparing to strike Hezbollah bases within Lebanon, including in Beirut, in response to the group's significant military buildup over two decades, which now includes advanced rockets, UAVs, and FPV drones that challenge the Iron Dome. This escalation, characterized by the recent targeted killing of a Hezbollah missile force head and the creation of buffer zones along the border to protect Israeli civilians from daily drone attacks, is occurring despite American pressure to avoid wider regional conflict, as Israeli officials warn they will act independently if Iran's proxies are not contained, drawing parallels to Hamas's build-up in Gaza. While Israel claims to issue evacuation warnings before strikes and urges civilians to distance themselves from Hezbollah positions deeply entrenched in residential areas, civilian casualties continue to occur, highlighting the tragic difficulty in separating military and civilian spaces as the conflict deepens with no immediate prospect of a ceasefire.
Tefen/Western Galilee: Israel’s operations against Hezbollah are moving beyond its northern border with Lebanon, with the Israel Defence Forces preparing to target Hezbollah bases inside Lebanese territory, including Beirut.
On Thursday, the IDF targeted Ali al-Husni, head of the missile force in the Imam Hussein division of an Iranian militia allied to Hezbollah, even as a chorus is growing in Israeli security circles to continue operations against Hezbollah to prevent the group from rebuilding its military infrastructure.
So far, the Israeli response has partly been shaped by the American pressure to avoid a wider regional escalation. But Israeli military and political figures warn that if America is unable to put pressure on Iran to contain its proxies, the IDF will not wait for the conflict to drag on and give more time to Hezbollah to replenish its capabilities.
“We don’t want to attack Lebanon as a country, but we want to attack Hezbollah assets in Beirut,” said a senior Israeli official.
It has been more than two decades since Israel unilaterally pulled out of Lebanon 26 years ago, believing it would bring quiet to the border. “Instead, Hezbollah used those years to build massive military capabilities, and today it has given us the reason to enter again,” said a senior security official.
Today, Israel’s northern frontier with green hills, scattered communities and quiet meandering roads stretching towards the Lebanon border tells the story of a landscape that has turned into a war zone for its residents.
Israeli security officials reveal that Hezbollah possesses rockets, anti-tank missiles, UAVs and fibre optic FPV drones that cannot be intercepted by the Iron Dome, posing a huge challenge to the military and a bigger threat to the men, women and children living in border towns.
‘Yellow line’
Every day, there are drone attacks causing casualties and injuries in civilian areas, which has prompted the IDF to move in by creating so- called buffer zones to act as the first line of defence in these areas. According to Israeli officials, the IDF is presently operating within a “yellow line”, which is supposed to act like a buffer zone of nearly 4-10 kilometres, covering the hilly stretches to protect the civilians against direct assault of missile and drone strikes by Hezbollah.
“The buffer zone is being created as we speak,” says Lt Col (retd) Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Centre in Tefen in western Galilee. “All the military infrastructure of Hezbollah… is now being destroyed.”
Sarit says Hezbollah has been operating like a “state within a state with its own command centres, weapons depots and operational infrastructure inside Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as throughout villages along the Israeli frontier.
The Hezbollah networks are deeply entrenched, she says, in residential areas, enjoying financial support of banking channels and even spreading influence through educational institutions. This makes any action against them both difficult and necessary as Israeli officials draw a parallel to the Hamas buildup in Gaza before the October 2023 attack, which killed thousands of Israeli citizens.
‘Don’t become human shields’
Israeli officials also defended strikes against Hezbollah positions, saying evacuation warnings are issued before strikes and civilians are repeatedly urged to leave the locations occupied by the group.
“In areas where we attack, we ask them to evacuate,” the official said. “We urge people not to support and become human shields inside civilian areas where Hezbollah is active.”
The tragedy of the conflict, says Sarit, is that Israel is being criticised both for conducting strikes and for issuing evacuation orders ahead of attacks.
According to officials, civilian casualties are occurring in areas where residents either did not evacuate or remained close to Hezbollah infrastructure and military activity.
“The Lebanese civilians must distance themselves from Hezbollah positions and operational areas,” officials argue.
As operations against Hezbollah continue, the challenge remains in separating military and civilian spaces. For Hezbollah, its territorial hold may be depleting, but its military strength remains significant. On Wednesday, an IDF soldier was killed, and two reservists were wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack on the border. On its part, Israel’s offensive appears only to be expanding, and despite American pressure, a ceasefire continues to remain a distant dream.