With Hezbollah’s first statements regarding its confrontation with Israeli special forces that attempted to infiltrate the villages of southern Lebanon and the Israeli army’s admission that a number of its soldiers were killed in the first direct clashes with the party’s fighters, the initial direction of the “specific ground operation” that Tel Aviv announced last Monday has become clear.
The occupation army said that the ground forces would work to target Hezbollah fighters and the infrastructure in the villages located along the border, and while the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation announced that military and political officials had officially agreed on the “next steps” of the operation, questions arise about the expected scenarios for the course of the ground operations of the Israeli forces. In southern Lebanon.
Fire reconnaissance
Israeli leaders late Monday evening approved plans to send ground forces into Lebanon, and the Israeli military said its forces had begun crossing the border in order to target sites that “pose a direct threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”
The Israeli ground movements came in the wake of intense raids on Lebanon over the past two weeks, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties, in an attempt by Israeli forces to impose a new reality with Hezbollah in order to secure the return of the settlers of the north to their settlements.
Although the Israeli occupation army announced that its forces “began limited, specific, and directed raids against Hezbollah targets,” the plan may develop into a broader and longer-term operation, especially with the deployment of thousands of additional forces in the north in recent days.
The nature of the forces, the tasks assigned to them, and the attempts to infiltrate the towns of Maroun al-Ras and Kafr Kila indicate that the occupation forces are seeking live-fire reconnaissance operations to examine Hezbollah’s combat capabilities and the possibility of expanding the ground operation or limiting it to special and limited operations.
The first clash between Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli Special Forces constituted a harsh lesson for the latter, which suffered heavy losses in the first hours of its ground operations inside Lebanese territory. The Israeli army acknowledged the killing of 8 soldiers, including 3 officers, as a result of being exposed to an ambush.
For its part, the Israeli “Ziv” Medical Center said that it received 39 injured soldiers, who arrived by helicopters and military ambulances.
Gradual sweep
Despite the difficult results recorded in the first phase of ground operations, the Israeli army is expected to implement a strategy of gradual expansion of its operations in southern Lebanon. It had previously announced that the 98th division in the army, including the Golani Brigade and special forces from various sectors, had She joined the forces massed on the northern front to participate in ground operations in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli occupation army preceded its announcement of its intention to carry out a ground operation, with a massive bombing campaign on villages in southern Lebanon. The towns of Maroun al-Ras, Kafr Kila and Aaita al-Shaab were subjected to hundreds of air strikes that targeted the homes of Lebanese citizens and infrastructure such as roads, bridges and civilian facilities.
Based on the results of this stage, the occupation army is likely to move to a limited invasion with a depth of less than 10 kilometers along the southern border of Lebanon. This operation aims to influence Hezbollah’s capabilities in using short-range missiles and anti-armor weapons targeting the forces gathered along the northern border. This allows the occupation forces greater freedom to organize positioning and movement operations to enhance the invasion campaign in its second phase.
In its third phase, the Israeli occupation forces aim to reach the Litani River, which has become a dividing line, and Israel believes it is necessary to dismantle Hezbollah’s combat infrastructure, especially the medium-range missiles that can target the “Israeli” depth.
The occupation believes that the area south of the Litani constitutes the main theater of operations for Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces, which Israel considers an exceptional threat that commemorates in the Israeli consciousness the defeat and failure that the occupation army suffered on the morning of last October 7 in the Gaza Strip.
From the Israeli perspective, this stage is considered the main and decisive area of war in determining the direction of the ground campaign against Lebanon, and it is expected that the occupation army will mobilize two additional divisions for this stage.
Open scenarios
In its previous experiences, the Israeli occupation launched its ground operation in 1982 in southern Lebanon with the aim of getting rid of the Palestinian resistance and dismantling its infrastructure, but that operation turned over time into an occupation of southern Lebanon, reaching the capital, Beirut, and lasting 18 years.
The most important outcome of this operation was the emergence of Hezbollah as a resistance movement that was able, after a series of attrition operations, to expel the occupation army from southern Lebanon in 2000 and strengthen its presence in the south, to then constitute one of the most important strategic challenges to the Israeli occupation.
Israel found itself moving, due to the complexity of the field reality, to an inevitable transformation in its ground operations into a ground operation without a ceiling, without an end, and without final answers to the reality that it sought to impose in southern Lebanon, which ultimately failed.
In 2006, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles crossed several kilometers into southern Lebanon, and in a scene immortal in military memory between Hezbollah and the occupation army, the party groups stationed in the villages of southern Lebanon confronted Merkava tanks and destroyed a number of them, which constituted a shock to the occupation army, which stopped its ground operations. He withdrew after the ceasefire agreement, which was based on Resolution 1701.
This experience constituted one of the most important determinants that the occupation army has been trying to avoid over the past months through concentrated aerial bombardment operations.
In the current context, the goals repeated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other political and military leaders, which include dismantling Hezbollah’s military structure, especially its missiles, or what Netanyahu calls “preventing a recurrence of the October 7 attack,” necessarily mean that the limited operations announced are not It suffices.
Achieving these goals requires permanent or long-term control of a wide area that reaches deep into Lebanon and may include the capital, Beirut. This is something that many observers doubt the ability of the occupation army to implement in light of the resistance of Hezbollah, which has proven in recent hours that what the Israeli occupation claims has weakened its capabilities. Combat capabilities after intense aerial bombardment campaigns are highly doubtful.
The former head of the Information Division in Israeli Military Intelligence, Tamir Hayman, points out the necessity of “discussing the final status desired by Israel, and the conditions for withdrawal from the field.” Hayman explains this by “the large prices that can be paid,” and this is a direct reference from one of the most prominent Israeli military analysts, to the lack of proportionality between the declared goals and the nature of the operations currently underway.
Although Hayman presented what he called the “great successes” achieved by the occupation army in recent days with the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and a number of the party’s military leaders, the path of questioning the ability to formulate a limited and successful operation imposes itself on his assessment, as he called for action. “With humility” in the face of the many challenges that an operation of this kind brings.
Fate sweeps into the field
It is clear from the statements of officials in Israel that the ground operation option has become decided, and the infiltration attempts over the past hours prove that the incursion plans have already begun, but determining the fate of these operations will be determined by Hezbollah’s ability to confront the operations in their escalating stages.
Sheikh Naim Qassem, Deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, had confirmed that “the options are open, and we will face any possibility if the Israelis enter by ground,” stressing that the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement.
The escalation arising after Iran carried out its response by launching a missile strike, which it described as successful, targeting the Israeli interior, and the resulting options for the Israeli occupation to respond, will constitute a basic determinant of the nature and limits of the ground operation that was launched according to data that did not include the latest Iranian response.
The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and the nature of the operations – carried out by the Palestinian resistance against the forces stationed in the Salah al-Din (Philadelphia) and Netzarim axes – remain a factor that imposes a field reality on the occupation army’s ability to conduct operations that require special forces on more than one front and what is built on that by transferring For forces between the fronts.
The war, which is approaching the completion of its first year, still imposes field, political and economic challenges that are expected to deepen if the occupying state becomes involved in a ground war of attrition in southern Lebanon and an open war with Iran.
