WHAT ISRAEL'S WAR AGAINST HEZBOLLAH IN LEBANON WILL LOOK LIKE
ISRAEL INVADES WITH THREE ARMORED COLUMNS, ENFORCES A NAVAL BLOCKADE AND BOMBS BEIRUT TO RUBBLE—STARTING WITH THE AIRPORT
Beirut international airport under attack by the Israeli air force in 2006 during its third invasion of Lebanon and the remains of a Lebanese jet at the same airport during the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
June 25, 2024
NEWS ANALYSIS
Israel is planning to invade Lebanon to fight long-time foe Hezbollah. If it does, this is what it would look like based on its three previous full-blown invasions of Lebanon.
The first thing Israel always bombs when it invades Lebanon is the airport in Beirut—to stop reinforcements and weapons from being flown into the country to fight the invasion.
Blowing up the runway also stops international journalists from flying into the country—an added bonus for Israel.
As Israel bombs Beirut, in the north of the country on the Mediterranean sea, three columns of mechanized Israeli infantry will speed across Israel's northern border into south Lebanon.
Roughly, one force will advance on a highway that runs along the coast all the way to Beirut, bypassing but leaving forces behind to lay siege to Tyre and Sidon. Another force will advance just inside Lebanon's eastern border with Syria, cutting off Hezbollah's supply line to Iran and stopping international anti-Israeli fighters from infiltrating across the border to join the fight on Hezbollah's side. The third column will penetrate into the mountains in the middle, seeking to destroy Hezbollah's missile launching sites hidden there.
In the skies above, Israeli planes will drop special forces and paratroopers near strategic bridges—including those crossing the Litani River in southern Israel—in an attempt to seize those bridges before Hezbollah can blow them up, slowing Israeli forces' advance.
They’ll also drop bombs all over Lebanon—to inhibit Hezbollah's ability to mobilize defenses. Israel will bomb power plants to kill electricity, deactivating water treatment and sewage plants. They'll bomb communication towers and TV studios in an attempt to silence Hezbollah propaganda. They specifically targe Hezbollah’s version of CNN: al-Manar.
They'll knock out the Internet and jam GPS to make navigation difficult and scramble satellite-guided missiles.
By sea, Israel will bomb Lebanon with missile and gun boats. They'll establish a naval blockade, preventing re-supply. They'll also stage amphibious assaults, landing tanks and troops along the coast. Israeli commando units will swim ashore to scout targets and conduct raids on high-value targets.
Mobile anti-aircraft launcher flying Hezbollah flag firing missile.
Hezbollah will fight back. They'll launch thousands of rockets and drones at Israel's army bases, air bases, sea ports and, probably, cities. They’ll fire cruise missiles at Israel’s warships. Even Israel’s nuclear reactors at Dimona will be in Hezbollah’s sights. Most of these missiles will be shot down by Israel's anti-missile defense systems, but many will strike their targets.
On the ground, Hezbollah has spent decades perfecting its defenses, building buried fortifications, boring tunnels and refining its battle tactics. It is armed with some of the most advanced anti-tank guided missiles in the world and knows how to use them to devastating effect—as it demonstrated when it stopped Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
Hezbollah fights like a guerilla force, but has almost the power of a conventional army—minus air-power. What this means is Israel will control the air, but Hezbollah will control much of the ground.
Israel will deploy information warfare and likely lie about its true war plan—as it successfully did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982. Then it told the world it would not stay in Lebanon. It stayed for 18 years.
All the while, Hezbollah will rain missiles into Israel and kill Israeli civilians.
Some Israelies will demand Prime Minister Netanyahu unleash extreme military force, not just against Hezbollah, but against Hezbollah’s allies including Syria, Iran and possibly Iraq and Yemen. On the flip-side, its an open question whether Iran and Syria will let Israel do to Hezbollah in Lebanon what it did to Hamas in the Gaza Strip—not when Hezbollah sent fighters to save Syria at Iran’s request. Syria and Iran owe Hezbollah.
Inside Israel, more citizens will demand a ceasefire. The Jewish state will cleave in two.
Inside Lebanon, Israel's bombs will turn a large portion of Lebanon's Christian population against Hezbollah—something it also did in 1982. The social fractures of Lebanon's long civil war, 1975-1990, are healed, but the fault lines remain. The old wounds could easily tear open unleashing a new civil war.
An Israeli amphibious assault near Beirut during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Israel took delivery of two brand-new amphibious assault ships from the United States in 2024, according to open source intelligence.
A few weeks, at best. That’s how close Israel is to invading Lebanon.
“The intense stage of the war with Hamas is about to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. "We will be able to move part of our forces to the north.”
In "solidarity" with Hamas, Hezbollah has fired missiles into Israel almost every day since Hamas's lethal cross-border raid into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They've fired about 5,000 to date, Israel says. 16 Israeli soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed. More than 60,000 who live along the border with Lebanon have been forced to move south.
Israel has responded with air strikes and artillery barrages aimed at what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing at least 479 people—mostly fighters but including 93 civilians. 95,000 or more have been forced to flee homes along the border.
Israel has also assassinated Hezbollah and Iranian commanders. For example, Israel killed veteran commander Sami Taleb Abdallah (member since 1984) on June 11. Hezbollah retaliated by firing at least 215 rockets at Israeli army bases, including its headquarters.
Back in Dec. when Israel feared Hezbollah would invade, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau threatened to "single-handedly turn" Beirut "into Gaza" if it did—where Israel has caused catastrophic destruction and killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and counting, according to Gaza officials.
After Israel killed Abdallah, Nasrallah threatened to fight Israel with “no rules and with no red lines” if it invaded Lebanon.
Hezbollah “obtained new weapons,” Nasrallah explained. “No place across the Zionist entity will be spared by our missiles and drones.”
That includes Israel's nuclear reactors at Dimona.
To emphasize Nasrallah's point, they broadcast a thinly-veiled threat: video footage shot from a Hezbollah drone high above the Israeli port city of Haifa. The edited video highlighted military posts, fuel dumps and other sensitive targets. Nasrallah also told his audience Hezbollah's fight in Syria earned it battle-proved allies in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries who are volunteering to go to Lebanon and fight Israel.
“We told them, thank you, but we are overwhelmed by the numbers we have,” Nasrallah said.
That would likely change if Israel invaded.
Israel Katz, Israel's Foreign Minister, responded by warning Hezbollah of “all-out war.”
"Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon severely beaten,” Katz added.
Lebanon does have an official army. It wouldn't stand a chance against Israel and it has never challenged Hezbollah.
Pres. Joe Biden's administration seems resigned to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
"The fact that we have managed to even hold" them off "for this long has been a miracle,” a senior US official told CNN last week.
“We’re entering a very dangerous period,” another senior Biden administration official said. “Something could start with little warning.”
A former Israeli general, Itzhak Brik, called an Israel invasion of Lebanon "collective suicide."
Hezbollah militia on parade in Lebanon.
If Israel invades, it promises a "Blitzkrieg"—a Nazi German word for "lightning war." The tactic means moving ground forces covered by air power and artillery as swiftly as possible into enemy territory to seize control fo key enemy targets. All politicians promise the wars they start won't take much time to win.
The fundamental problem Israel faces, as it faced in 2006, is Hezbollah's missiles. The second Israel crosses the border, Hezbollah starts firing missiles. While Israel is blitzkrieging up the coast, those missiles will be destroying Israel.
Israel has sophisticated missile defense systems like the Iron Dome, but the sheer number of missiles Hezbollah can fire at any one time will likely overwhelm the systems, the US says.
Israel will bomb Hezbollah's launchers from the air, but there's a lot of launchers to bomb and first it has to find them.
Hezbollah's missile launchers are dug into Lebanon's mountains and hills. They’re cemented into cities. They roll around on trucks. Redundency is built into Hezbollah’s defenses. The entire country is a fort. Rocket launchers are surrounded by overlapping layers of fortified firing positions, weapons caches, interconnecting tunnels and Hezbollah soldiers ready to fight to the death to defend their homes.
In short, taking the launchers out will take a lot of time—time Israel does not have.
Hezbollah doesn't even have to "win." All it has to do is hold out long enough to keep Israel from winning. That means getting Israel to quit—or getting the world to stop it. While the world has, so far, stood by and watched on social media as Israel decimated Gaza and killed more than 20,000 children, that created a world-wide movement against Israel that is gathering force. More people are paying attention than in decades.
If Israel starts leveling Lebanon like it decimated Gaza, that movement will only grow.
The risk is high Israel might win some battles, but lose this war.