Why Israel needs to be careful – Firstpost

It is impossible to say whether these were strategically choreographed events, but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly, the reported killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike, and the threat of a ground invasion by Israeli forces in Lebanon ( IDF) everything seemed to be perfectly in sync.

This is something more like the IDF of the past: efficient, ruthless, punctual and not as late as they were the target of the major cross-border terrorist attack on October 7 last year. Israel has turned its attention to Hezbollah after focusing on Hamas in Gaza last year. Nasrallah's death is a consequence of this.

On October 7 last year, the IDF lost much of its luster and reputation when it was hit by a surprise cross-border attack from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, an essentially non-state entity, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and over 250 captured hostages away. It has taken nearly a year for the IDF to wage a brazen and uncompromising air and ground campaign using only the doctrine of destructive dominance to limit Hamas's presence and capability in Gaza, but not to a convincing level.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran, which has major interests in the Middle East conflict. It is the reluctance and lack of military capabilities of Arab nations that has left Iran as the main player in space. Hezbollah is a Lebanese organization founded by Shiite clerics in Lebanon in 1982 to expel the IDF from so-called Islamic areas and to militarily attack and harass Israel.

Hamas is a Palestinian group that was founded in 1987 after the start of the first Intifada against the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip. They are separate entities but share the goal of armed resistance against Israel. Hasan Nasrallah became Secretary General of Hezbollah in 1992.

Why has Israel focused its attention on Lebanon?

Hezbollah was not involved in the Oct. 7 attack, but it has since upped the ante to target Israel's northern border areas, leading to the displacement of more than 90,000 people from their homes. The world is preoccupied with events in Gaza and has forgotten the displaced Israelis from the north caused by Hezbollah's cross-border rocket fire on population centers. Once Israel got a little reprieve from Gaza, it turned its attention to the north.

Israel has killed several Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, who was recently killed in Iran. The US killed the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, in 2019, and in recent months other Hezbollah and Hamas commanders have been neutralized by missile and air strikes in Syria. However, much more is made of Nasrallah's assassination; Why?

In fact, this is a major blow to both Iran's proxy war in the Levant and Israel, and also a major setback to Hezbollah, as Nasrallah had a larger-than-life personality and was the leader for 32 years. Many would compare this to the killing of Osama bin Laden (OBL) in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. Al-Qaeda was never able to maintain the same status under OBL's successor Ayman al Zawahiri.

Nasrallah rose to prominence in 2006 during the Israel-Lebanon war, which was fought primarily with Hezbollah and ended in a stalemate. Hezbollah was the first non-state actor in the Middle East to achieve victory over Israel because Israel was unable to gain a clear military advantage. It will not be easy to replace Hasan Nasrallah in the near future.

Israel's strategy on the northern front

During the current conflict, Hezbollah has claimed that the group's cross-border attacks have diverted IDF resources that would otherwise target Hamas in Gaza. As Gaza stabilized militarily to some extent, the IDF wanted to change its focus due to Hezbollah's increasing attacks on the population of northern Israel.

More importantly, the IDF wants to overcome the psychological deadlock of the 2006 failure and punish Hezbollah. From cyber-pager attacks to precision bombing of Hezbollah weapons positions, the IDF follows a similar doctrine to that in Gaza. It urged civilians to evacuate and showed no remorse for the collateral damage it caused. It is “shock and awe” of a different kind. The operation against Nasrallah was a major intelligence success.

Expectations of a ceasefire

A ceasefire is highly unlikely in both the Gaza Strip and the northern front, but Netanyahu has won a moral victory by appearing aggressively at the UN General Assembly and succeeding in Lebanon. Realigning Gaza with the northern front is all about optimization. Some units have been redeployed and more are on the way. The IDF wants to keep up the pressure and push back Hezbollah fighters. One should not expect the IDF to advance deep into Lebanon; This will create problems for the future. It simply wants to create an exclusion zone so that Hezbollah cannot use short-range missiles against Israeli-inhabited areas.

We should expect numerous threats from Iran, but they are unlikely to materialize. Israel will now be in full swing, but must be careful that its actions do not upset the careful balance in the Middle East and further expand the conflict. Through the end of the US election and Inauguration Day, one can expect the status quo and continued Israeli efforts to weaken both Hamas and Hezbollah, especially as they now have an uncertain and inexperienced leadership. Hezbollah's military capability in 2006 was largely neutralized by the IDF's technological advances. The Houthis in Yemen would be trying to gain prominence at this point.

The author is a member of the National Disaster Management Authority. The views expressed in the article above are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.