It has become clear that Israel has enough intelligence information about Lebanon’s Hezbollah that allows it to launch comprehensive and deep strikes against its forces, infrastructure and superstructure, not only military, but also civilian. If Tel Aviv wanted to actually disrupt Hezbollah’s communications network in a devastating way to the party’s organisational structures, operations rooms, and command and control centres, it would have been able to do so with an ease that perhaps no one can imagine.
However, it is completely clear that Israel is not currently in the process of a comprehensive and open war with the party. According to Israeli calculations (and American ones before it), this is not the time for a comprehensive war with Hezbollah and, of course, with Iran. The Israeli army is still counting its material and moral losses resulting from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent war that greatly depleted Tel Aviv’s military capabilities and dealt a blow to the army’s status and cohesion. Moreover, there are less than two months left before the US presidential election, and Washington cannot afford the outbreak of a comprehensive war in the Middle East at this critical time for the presidential candidates, in addition to the direct impact on the current Democratic administration.
Therefore, the goal of igniting a comprehensive Israeli war with Hezbollah or carrying out a large-scale and deep attack on the party and Lebanon is not currently on Israel’s agenda. This is especially since the war in Gaza has not ended yet, and concerns about the military capabilities of Hamas and the Palestinian Resistance remain. Tel Aviv does not have the luxury of shifting its entire military focus to the north, without securing the south in Gaza, with an agreement that guarantees that the Al-Aqsa Flood will not be repeated, at least in the near future.
This does not mean that Israel’s goals are limited to eliminating several of the party’s leaders and members, as it is already carrying out liquidation and hunting operations for the party’s members and staff, with its pace increasing in recent months. The losses caused by the explosion of communication devices also affected many civilians, which increased the ugliness of Israel’s image, and added to its already overflowing record of crimes against humanity, which greatly increased after 7 October (2023).
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Understanding the motives begins with reading the results, and the first result from the Israeli operation is causing a state of organisational confusion in the ranks of Hezbollah and shocking its leaders in the face of the dangerous security and technical exposure, in addition to striking the morale of the party’s bases and sympathisers within Lebanese society. In addition, Israel will benefit from the time that Hezbollah will need to discover the traitors and agents within its ranks, and then rearrange its work mechanisms and the dynamics of communication, control and guidance, whether operational, field or administrative, especially at the leadership levels.
In the past few months, the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah have been governed by the rule of “response according to the size of the action”. After the setback of 7 October, and then the setbacks of the war in Gaza, Israel is trying to restore its military standing and confirm its possession of tools and capabilities that guarantee it will inflict widespread destruction on the party’s capabilities, and its military, logistical and human infrastructure. It is also establishing the most important rules of engagement, currently in effect – “damage, not destruction”.
The deeper meaning of this message is directed to the other parties, who may now consider Israel weak or less powerful and capable than it had seemed. The media and psychological aspect of the successive strikes and targeting in the past days aims to prompt all parties to review their calculations frequently, before basing its calculations on the violent shock caused by the Al-Aqsa Flood, to the point that it almost completely destroyed the Israeli deterrence theory. The success of this Israeli calculation is conditional on a corresponding rationality on the part of Hezbollah, as well as Iran, which will be revealed in the coming days.
This article appeared in Arabic in Al Araby on 23 September, 2024.
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