The latest between Israel and Hezbollah: Israel tells 20 cities to evacuate now as it sends ground troops to Lebanon | World News

The Israeli military must assume it is “done” in Gaza because it has not been able to comfortably fight on two fronts, says our defense and security analyst.

Accordingly Professor Michael ClarkeThe Israeli military has always said that Hamas in Gaza is not its “real enemy” and has been planning to target Hezbollah in Lebanon for years.

“The real enemy is Hezbollah, because behind Hezbollah is Iran,” he says.

“The plan they are implementing now must have been devised relatively recently, because… they can only comfortably compete against one opponent at a time.”

“Basically they think that they are done in Gaza for now and that now they will just bomb and invade Gaza.”

“As far as we can see, they only have a few brigades there, and they have moved a lot of forces north, including their best force, the 98th Division, which appears to be taking the lead in Lebanon.”

Work is more difficult in Lebanon than in Gaza

Prof Clarke says it is in some ways more difficult for the Israelis to be targeted and proportionate in their attacks on Lebanon.

This is because parts of the country are very mountainous and therefore there are many tunnels beneath the surface.

“They’re rock tunnels, so they’re not in the sand. They are very difficult to penetrate except with bunker buster bombs, and they do a lot of other damage too,” he says.

“Taking out Hezbollah or hurting it so badly that it has to withdraw will be a much more difficult task in southern Lebanon than in Gaza.”

So far, the Israeli armed forces have eliminated two top levels of Hezbollah – its leader Hassan Nasrallah and some of his commanders.

“We suspect they will have to rebuild their entire senior management team while middle management is dead, injured or trying to recover from the attack two weeks ago,” Prof Clarke added.

“That’s why the Israelis think they have a good moment to catch them.”