Hezbollah's Deputy Leader Says Group Would Stop Fighting With Israel After Gaza Cease-fire

Hezbollah's participation in the Israel-Hamas war has been as a “support front” for its ally, Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”

Outlook Web Desk
Updated on: 2 July 2024 

Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassem | Photo: AP

The deputy leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday the only sure path to a cease-fire on the Lebanon-Israel border is a full cease-fire in Gaza.

“If there is a cease-fire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion,” Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in an interview with The Associated Press at the group's political office in Beirut's southern suburbs.

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Hezbollah's participation in the Israel-Hamas war has been as a “support front” for its ally, Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”

But, he said, if Israel scales back its military operations without a formal cease-fire agreement and full withdrawal from Gaza, the implications for the Lebanon-Israel border conflict are less clear.

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“If what happens in Gaza is a mix between cease-fire and no cease-fire, war and no war, we can't answer (how we would react) now, because we don't know its shape, its results, its impacts,” Kassem said during a 40-minute interview.
The war began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 — mostly civilians — and kidnapping roughly 250. Israel responded with an air and ground assault that has caused widespread devastation and killed more than 37,900 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

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Talks of a cease-fire in Gaza have faltered in recent weeks, raising fears of an escalation on the Lebanon-Israel front. Hezbollah has traded near-daily strikes with Israeli forces along their border over the past nine months.

The low-level conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.

Hamas has demanded an end to the war in Gaza, and not just a pause in fighting, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to make such a commitment until Israel realizes its goals of destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities and brings home the roughly 120 hostages still held by Hamas.

Last month, the Israeli army said it had “approved and validated” plans for an offensive in Lebanon if no diplomatic solution was reached to the ongoing clashes. Any decision to launch such an operation would have to come from the country's political leadership.

Some Israeli officials have said they are seeking a diplomatic solution to the standoff and hope to avoid war. At the same time, they have warned that the scenes of destruction seen in Gaza will be repeated in Lebanon if war breaks out.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, is far more powerful than Hamas and believed to have a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.

Kassem said he doesn't believe that Israel currently has the ability — or has made a decision — to launch a full-blown war with Hezbollah. He warned that even if Israel intends to launch a limited operation in Lebanon that stops short of a full-scale war, it should not expect the fighting to remain limited.

“Israel can decide what it wants: limited war, total war, partial war,” he said. “But it should expect that our response and our resistance will not be within a ceiling and rules of engagement set by Israel… If Israel wages the war, it means it doesn't control its extent or who enters into it.”

The latter was an apparent reference to Hezbollah's allies in the Iran-backed so-called “axis of resistance” in the region. Armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere — and, potentially, Iran itself — could enter the fray in the event of a full-scale war in Lebanon, which might also pull in Israel's strongest ally, the United States.

U,S. and European diplomats have made a circuit between Lebanon and Israel for months in an attempt to ward off a wider conflict.

Kassem said he met on Saturday with Germany's deputy chief of intelligence, Ole Dieh, in Beirut. U.S. officials do not meet directly with Hezbollah because Washington has designated it a terrorist group, but they regularly send messages via intermediaries.

Kassem said White House envoy Amos Hochstein had recently requested via intermediaries that Hezbollah apply pressure on Hamas to accept a cease-fire and hostage-exchange proposal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden. He said Hezbollah had rejected the request.

“Hamas is the one that makes its decisions and whoever wants to ask for something should talk to it directly,” he said.

Kassem criticized U.S. efforts to find a resolution to the war in Gaza, saying it has backed Israel's plans to end Hamas' presence in Gaza. A constructive deal, he said, would aim to end the war, get Israel to withdraw from Gaza, and ensure the release of hostages.

Once a cease-fire is reached, then a political track can determine the arrangements inside Gaza and on the front with Lebanon, he added.

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No state in region can feel safe until Israeli aggression stops — Erdogan

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging border fire since the eruption of the Gaza war in October, but recent escalation has fueled concern of a bigger confrontation.


Erdogan said Türkiye "will resolve the issue of refugees not based on prejudices or fears, but with rational, conscientious framework based on realities of the country and economy." /Photo: AA

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has expressed concern about Israel's increasing rhetoric and attacks on Lebanon, particularly regarding the future of the region.

"No state in our region, including Türkiye, can feel safe as long as Israeli aggression under [Israel's Prime Minister] Netanyahu's administration is not stopped," Erdogan said on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging border fire since the eruption of the Gaza war in October, but recent escalation has fueled concern of a bigger confrontation.

Their worst confrontation in 18 years

The Lebanese group has linked the cessation of its attacks on Israel to the end of Tel Aviv’s onslaught on Gaza, which has killed nearly 38,000 Palestinians and created a humanitarian catastrophe.

While the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is still relatively contained, it marks their worst confrontation in 18 years, with widespread damage to buildings and farmland in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The sides have been trading fire since the Gaza war erupted in October. The hostilities have largely depopulated the border zone on both sides, with tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes.

Should we re-evaluate Israel’s War on Lebanon 16 Years on?

Emad Moussa
12 Jul, 2022

Israel’s aims and intentions during the 34-day long 2006 Lebanon war, writes Emad Moussa, were less to do with targeting Hezbollah and ‘countering’ its missile attacks, and more with the collective punishment of civilians.

A Lebanese man carries his personal belongings as he walks 10 August 2006 amid the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardment in the southern suburbs of Beirut. [GETTY]


Labelled as the Second Lebanon War by Israel, and the July War by Lebanon, the 34-day conflict which took place in 2006 broke out when Hezbollah fighters ambushed an Israeli patrol in a cross-border raid, capturing two soldiers and killing three others. Five more soldiers were killed shortly after as the Israeli army attempted to rescue the captives inside Lebanon.

The context of the attack includes the ongoing conflict over the Israel-occupied Lebanese Sheba'a Farms (a small stretch of land bordering Israel, Syria, and Lebanon) and Hezbollah’s intention to swap IDF soldiers with Lebanese and Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

Of critical importance here is not the first trigger; after all Israel and Hezbollah had routinely engaged in skirmishes and, sometimes, fatal exchanges in the area. The rapid escalation to war was less about Hezbollah’s actions and more about Israel’s employment of extreme disproportionality in its response.

Disproportionality is an Israeli military strategy that relies on excessive firepower and tremendous, swift unleashing of force, and is typically employed in asymmetrical warfare.

''Lebanon was put under air and naval blockade. Civilian infrastructure, including Beirut Airport and power stations, in addition to Hezbollah bases, were bombarded around the clock. Nearly 1200 people (the vast majority Lebanese civilians) were killed, and an estimated one million others were displaced. ''

Its goal is to deter protracted warfare, avoid attrition, and - because Israel lacks a strategic depth - concentrate the hostilities within the enemy’s territories.

What is not officially stated but often translated on the ground is the infliction of extensive damage on the enemy’s infrastructure that it will require them a long and expensive reconstruction process to bounce back to normality. This is meant to traumatise the enemy beyond even thinking about engaging militarily with Israel; therefore, establishing deterrence.

In reality, however, and judging by the results, what eventually transpired in Lebanon, as it would in Gaza later, was a series of war crimes coupled by a few surprising blows to Israel’s “too confident” notion of deterrence.

Within hours of Hezbollah’s attack, the Israeli cabinet unanimously approved a proposal by PM Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, to carry out a dramatic and comprehensive military action against Hezbollah.

But as usual, operational codes in Israel’s military perception are rarely literal. The attack on Hezbollah saw Israel’s military disproportionality exceeding its already vulgar boundaries, from “attacking Hezbollah” to waging an all-out, destructive war on Lebanon.

Lebanon was put under air and naval blockade. Civilian infrastructure, including Beirut Airport and power stations, in addition to Hezbollah bases, were bombarded around the clock. Nearly 1200 people (the vast majority Lebanese civilians) were killed, and an estimated one million others were displaced.

The intensity of bombing and indiscriminate targeting almost mirrored Israel’s invasion of the country 24 years prior, and re-enacted a series of bloody attacks on Lebanon in the two decades that followed.

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In Brief

Hadeel Himmo

On July 30th, for instance, Israeli jets shelled the village of Qana in Southern Lebanon, killing 28 people, eerily repeating the scenes from the 1996 Qana massacre, when Israel targeted a UN compound where civilians took shelter, killing over a hundred of them.

In fact, the level of disproportionality, as Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah would come to admit later, exceeded Hezbollah’s expectations.

But this scale of destruction is precisely what casts doubts, especially when analysed retrospectively, on the broader incentives behind Israel’s onslaught. As opposed to the initially declared objectives of retrieving the soldiers, incapacitating Hezbollah, and creating a buffer zone in Southern Lebanon to limit the range of Hezbollah’s missiles.

The dubiety is emphasised by Israel’s failure to achieve most of the operation’s declared objectives or stop the barrage of retaliatory Hezbollah missiles hitting the heart of northern Israel - even after 34 days of intense fighting, 7000 bombs and missile airstrikes, and later, ground invasion.

By targeting Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure Israel redeployed its unapologetic policy of collective punishment and state terrorism. One of the goals was to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and the ethnically fragile Lebanese public, as well as between the organisation and the Lebanese government, hoping that will ultimately lead to the government forcing Hezbollah to disarm.

The attack on Lebanon’s civilians would later be adopted as an Israeli army policy, known as the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, a reference to Beirut’s Shia-majority quarter and allegedly the centre of Hezbollah’s strength, which Israel bombed unceasingly throughout the war.

As such, state terrorism has been officiated as a legitimate army policy, allowing for the deliberate destruction of entire civilian areas rather than engaging in a fight to overtake fortified positions.

This doctrine would also be used repeatedly in Gaza and now, is set to be used against 160 Shia-majority villages across Lebanon should hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah erupt again.

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Perspectives

Joseph Daher

The excessive disproportionality is also understood as an attempt by Israel to heal its wounds following its humiliating withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May 2000. Israel also saw its military deterrence deteriorate, particularly in dealing with unconventional non-state actors, like Hezbollah and Hamas, and against which the known principles of asymmetrical warfare have proven limited.

After the war, both Hezbollah and Israel claimed victory. But what transpired was a mixed bag of “victories” and “defeats” for both sides.

Israel’s excessive use of military power proved ineffective; its collective punitive measures only resulted in war crimes and very little political outcome. The war has since been viewed as a military fiasco having failed to disarm or destroy Hezbollah. The Israeli government-appointed Winograd Commission, which was tasked with assessing the war outcome, described the Lebanon war as a "missed opportunity.”

Not only had Hezbollah survived Israel’s onslaught, it maintained consistent firepower till the last day of the war, and for the first time, managed to change the rules of engagement and transfer the battle to Israel. Its media outlets, Al-Manar TV especially, continued to broadcast uninterrupted from undisclosed locations.

Hezbollah today is much stronger than it was in 2006, even after its controversial ten-year involvement in the Syrian civil war. The organisation now far exceeds the Lebanese army in personnel, battle experience, and weaponry.

However, the then strategic victory for Hezbollah was also (and continues to be) a massive blow to the Lebanese state. Walid Junblatt, the Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, commented after the war had ended - pointing at a large poster of Nasrallah that survived the bombing on the Beirut Airport autostrade, that “Hezbollah won…and today, Nasrallah’s picture is larger than Lebanon.”

Indeed, the war cost Lebanon an estimated $2.8 billion worth of infrastructure damage and triggered a 5% shrinkage in the economy. Hezbollah’s military achievements have also deepened the party’s influence in Lebanese politics, weakening the Lebanese state’s role.

The war may have also emphasised sectarian politics and increased regional intervention in Lebanon, mainly by Iran and some Gulf states.

Sixteen years after the war, the story continues. Tensions between the two countries are at an all-time high, with Israel’s infringement upon Lebanon’s Mediterranean gas, a crumbling Lebanese economy, the heightened Iranian presence in the region, and Israel’s internal political crises all serving as additional triggers.

This all leads us to the question: are we on the cusp of another attack on Lebanon?

This might be determined by whether the mutual deterrence established in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel can withstand the unprecedented and rather pressing changes in the regional geopolitical scene.

Dr Emad Moussa is a researcher and writer who specialises in the politics and political psychology of Palestine/Israel.
Follow him on Twitter: @emadmoussa

Escalation in Lebanon: What is Israel trying to achieve?

Jennifer Holleis

DW

September 24, 2024

While Israel says its attacks on Lebanon's Hezbollah are necessary to regain safety in the border region, analysts point to three different key factors.

Analysts say three key factors are behind Israel's attacks on Lebanon

Image: FADEL ITANI /AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the current escalation in Lebanon is necessary "to defend our people against Hezbollah."

"We must take out those weapons to pave the way for the safe return of Israel's northern communities to their homes," he said.



Almost a year ago, some 60,000 Israelis had to evacuate their houses when the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon began shelling the border area in northern Israel.

Hezbollah — which is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, including the US and Germany, while the European Union classifies its armed wing as a terrorist group — has argued that their rockets are in support of Gaza's militant organization Hamas whose fighters along with members of other militant Islamist groups killed around 1,150 people and took some 250 more as hostages on October 7, 2023. Hamas is also designated a terrorist organization by Germany, the US, EU and others.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 41,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's war against Hamas.

Experts agree that the weapon arsenal supplied by Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon will last for months to come.Image: Baz Ratner/AP/picture alliance

'Almost full-fledged war'

Meanwhile, the death tally in Lebanon is on the rise. Israel's current attacks, as well as the recent explosions of communications devices and killings of Hezbollah leaders, have claimed the lives of around 500 people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

The EU's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has described the situation as "almost full-fledged war."

However, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, the current military operation and the dangerous escalation mainly serves as "justification or cover for Israel's seeking to return its displaced citizens to the north."

In her view, however, there are other key factors driving Israel's current attacks on Lebanon.

"Firstly, Israel is trying to delink the Gaza and Hezbollah fronts on its borders," she told DW.

"Israel has not been able to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza, and it has not been able to achieve a peace agreement from Hezbollah because of Gaza," Vakil said.

Meanwhile, the so-called Axis of Resistance, which consists of countries like Iran and multiple militias like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemen-based Houthis who consider Israel and the US as their enemies, has been focusing on unifying their forces and pressuring Israel simultaneously since October 7, she added.

Not only Israelis, but some 110,000 Lebanese have left the border region

Image: FADEL ITANI/AFP

Aftermath of the Second Lebanon War

"Secondly, of course, Israel faces a perpetual security threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon," she said.

In 2006, a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel — called the Second Lebanon War after the First Lebanon War between 1982 and 1985 — ended with the acceptance of the United Nations Resolution 1701.

The conditions were an immediate cease-fire, the deployment of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces and of Hezbollah from that same area, as well as the disarmament of Hezbollah.

However, Hezbollah did neither retreat to Lebanon's Litani River, which is some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, nor did the Shiite militia give up its weapons. In the years since, with Iran's support, Hezbollah's military equipment and number of trained fighters has multiplied instead.

This also fosters fears that Hezbollah fighters could in the future abduct Israeli citizens to their territory.

"Israel is [once more] seeking to force Hezbollah to accept UN Security Council Resolution 1701," Vakil said.

Lebanon war distracts from Gaza war

"Thirdly, with this operation in Lebanon, there is no focus on Gaza," Vakil said.

Almost a year after the war in Gaza began, the international focus has shifted despite ongoing fighting in Gaza and over 90 hostages who remain in Hamas captivity, she pointed out.

"Israel has no strategy for extracting itself from Gaza and it hasn't made it clear what it plans for the day after and it is certainly not talking about an Israeli-Palestinian process," Vakil said.

In her view, the war in Lebanon "is a distraction from the lack of strategy in Gaza."

Israel's population is getting increasingly impatient with their government almost a year after the Hamas attack on October 7

Image: Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo/picture alliance

Ground invasion in Lebanon as potential game changer

Meanwhile, the Israeli population is getting increasingly impatient. Pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal and secure the return hostages is growing.

"From an Israeli point of view, political domestic pressure is very high and is intensifying week per week," Lorenzo Trombetta, a Beirut-based Middle East analyst and consultant for UN agencies, told DW.

He assumes that reaching a consensus has become a key step for the Israeli government. One way to achieve this could be by providing for the security of northern Israel, Trombetta said.

"Only, it is hard to say if Israel will be able to achieve this," he added.

"Who knows if or when an Israeli ground operation will begin? And in what way would Iran react if Hezbollah was on the brink of a total defeat against Israel?" Trombetta asked.

Edited by: Rob Mudge

Hezbollah is the state in south Lebanon: Karim El-Gawhary

Lebanon: The history of a weak state

Kersten Knipp

DW

9 hours ago9 hours ago

The Lebanese state lacks power to contain the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Isreal unfolding on its territory. Its army is notoriously weak too.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon

Image: Rabih Daher/REUTERS

Earlier this week during an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Israel was waging a "dirty war" against his country. He said Israel was responsible for an unprecedented escalation in Lebanonand for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in just a few days, "including young people, women and children." That is why he said he was counting on a joint communiqué by France and the US, which would garner international support and end the "war." Israel rejects calls for a cease-fire.

Mikati's speech showed that the Lebanese government is largely powerless to stop the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It has no real influence on Israel's or Hezbollah's actions. Once again, the weakness of the Lebanese government and Lebanese state is becoming apparent.

French President Emmanuel Macron (left) speaks with Prime Minister of Lebanon Najib Mikati (right) on the sidelines of the UN meeting in mid-September 2024I

mage: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

The history of a weak state

This weakness has historical roots. "Lebanon was founded in the early 20th century as a state of Christian Maronites in alliance with the French as a protecting power," says Markus Schneider, who heads the Friedrich-Ebert foundation's regional project for peace and security in the Middle East in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

"The birth defect was that it included large areas of non-Maronite populations from the outset," Schneider told DW. "Confessionalism was a compromise in order to integrate other sections of the population. This however prevented the emergence of a strong nation state."

This confessional structure became further entrenched in the Lebanese civil war that erupted in 1975, pitting the country's three largest denominations — Shiites, Sunnis and Maronite Christians — against each other. After the end of the civil war in 1990, a system was established to better balance the interests of the individual confessional groups.

"However, this system led to these groups repeatedly trying to assert their own interests at the expense of the other groups," Schneider says. "This continues to weaken the state. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that the country has been unable to agree on a president since 2022." The rampant corruption which plagues Lebanon is also linked to these divisions. "If there isn't a strong state that can take action against the centrifugal forces in its own country and institutions, then an oligarchic system can easily emerge in which everyone serves themselves," Schneider said.

Israel-Hezbollah conflict: Civilians caught in the crossfire  02:21

Hezbollah

Many observers also feel that Lebanon is harmed by the presence of Hezbollah, a Shiite group classified by the US, Germanyand several Sunni Arab states as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, receiving substantial support — including and above all military aid — from Iran from the very outset. In 2022, the Washington-based Wilson Center described Hezbollah's armed wing as likely "the most formidable non-state military actor in the Middle East — and arguably in the world." It was Hezbollah that opened fired on Israel after the start of the Gaza war last fall — without ever taking into consideration the rest of the Lebanese population. "Hezbollah has basically taken Lebanese politics hostage," says Middle East expert Kelly Petillo of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A weak Lebanese army

The weakness of the Lebanese state is also evident in the passivity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which finds itself in a dilemma in the country's south, where it cooperates with United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL) peacekeepers on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Both forces are made up of 15,000 soldiers. Their presence is linked to the 2006 Lebanon war, when Israel occupied areas of southern Lebanon. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 holds that following an Israeli withdrawal, the LAF and UNFIL would work together to ensure that no armed Lebanese militias return to southern Lebanon. Only troops authorized by the Lebanese government may be present in the south. Hezbollah has so far, however, disregarded this agreement and remains active in the area.

Lebanese armed forces out on patrol in Beirut in March 2024

Image: Elisa Gestri/Sipa USA/picture alliance

The LAF is relatively powerless in military terms. It is ranked in 118th place out of a total of 145 in the Global Firepower Index, which compares the strength of national armies worldwide. It would not be able to put up any serious resistance to the Israeli army, which is ranked 17th in the Global Firepower Index, nor would it be able to contain Hezbollah. "This would drag Lebanon into a civil war," says Schneider.

The LAF's biggest problem, meanwhile, remains political. As it is not controlled by any confessional group in the country, the army is regarded as one of the few non-confessional institutions in Lebanon, says Schneider. "But of course the army is also weakened by the national and economic crisis in Lebanon," he explains. "That is why it receives financial support, for example with regard to paying salaries. The concern is that if the army collapses, the Lebanese state itself could collapse. But of course, the army cannot solve the state's political problems."

How Israel defends itself against missile attacks  02:24

This article was translated from German

Nearly one million people displaced in Lebanon, Israeli strikes kill dozens

DW

Issued on: 29/09/2024 -

Israel struck multiple targets in Lebanon on Sunday, pressing Iran-backed Hezbollah with more attacks after it struck a huge blow by killing the group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Story by Andrew Hillier.

Nasrallah killing reveals the extent of Israel's infiltration of Hezbollah

The killing of Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah caps a series of stunning Israeli operations that exposed the extent to which Israeli spy agencies have penetrated the powerful Iran-backed militant organisation and tracked its shadowy command structure.


Issued on: 29/09/2024 

-

A Hezbollah flag at the site of the strike that killed leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs, pictured on September 29, 2024.

 © Hassan Ammar, AP

In the wake of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's killing, Hezbollah faces the enormous challenge of plugging the infiltration in its ranks that allowed its arch enemy Israel to destroy weapons sites, booby-trap its communications and assassinate the veteran leader, whose whereabouts had been a closely guarded secret for years.

Nasrallah's killing in a command HQ on Friday came barely a week after Israel's deadly detonation of hundreds of booby-trapped pagers and radios. It was the culmination of a rapid succession of strikes that have eliminated half of Hezbollah's leadership council and decimated its top military command.

In the days before and hours after Nasrallah's killing, Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources in Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Syria who provided details of the damage Israel has wrought on the powerful Shiite paramilitary group, including to its supply lines and command structure. All asked for anonymity to speak about sensitive matters.

One source familiar with Israeli thinking told Reuters, less than 24 hours before the strike, that Israel has spent 20 years focusing intelligence efforts on Hezbollah and could hit Nasrallah when it wanted, including in the headquarters.

The person called the intelligence "brilliant," without providing details.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his close circle of ministers authorized the attack on Wednesday, two Israeli officials told Reuters. The attack took place while Netanyahu was in New York to speak at the UN General Assembly.

Nasrallah had avoided public appearances since a previous 2006 war. He had long been vigilant, his movements were restricted and the circle of people he saw was very small, according to a source familiar with Nasrallah's security arrangements. The assassination suggested his group had been infiltrated by informants for Israel, the source said.

Read moreDeath of Hezbollah chief raises questions of what comes next

The Hezbollah leader had been even more cautious than usual since the Sept. 17 pager blasts, out of concern Israel would try to kill him, a security source familiar with the group's thinking told Reuters a week ago, citing his absence from a commanders' funeral and his pre-recording of a speech broadcast a few days before.

Hezbollah's media office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. US President Joe Biden on Saturday called Nasrallah's killing "a measure of justice" for his many victims, and said the United States fully supported Israel's right to defend itself against Iranian-backed groups.

Israel says it carried out the hit on Nasrallah by dropping bombs on the underground headquarters below a residential building in southern Beirut.

"This is a massive blow and intelligence failure for Hezbollah," Magnus Ranstorp, a veteran Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University. "They knew that he was meeting. He was meeting with other commanders. And they just went for him."

Including Nasrallah, Israel's military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah's nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week. These commanders led units ranging from the rocket division to the elite Radwan force.

Around 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were maimed by the exploding pagers and walkie talkies on Sept. 17 and Sept. 18.

On Saturday, Israel's military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters in a briefing that the military had "real-time" knowledge that Nasrallah and other leaders were gathering. Shoshani did not say how they knew, but said the leaders were meeting to plan attacks on Israel.

Brigadier General Amichai Levin, commander of Israel's Hatzerim Airbase, told reporters that dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds.

"The operation was complex and was planned for a long time," according to Levin.
Depleted

Hezbollah has shown the ability to replace commanders quickly, and Nasrallah's cousin Hashem Safieddine, also a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam's Prophet Mohammed, has long been tipped as his successor.

"You kill one, they get a new one," said a European diplomat of the group's approach.

The group, whose name means Party of God, will fight on: by US and Israeli estimates it had some 40,000 fighters ahead of the current escalation, along with large weapons stockpiles and an extensive tunnel network near Israel's border.

Founded in Tehran in 1982, the Shiite paramilitary outfit is the most formidable member of Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance of anti-Israel allied irregular forces, and a significant regional player in its own right.

But it has been materially and psychologically weakened over the past 10 days.

Thanks to decades of backing from Iran, prior to the current conflict Hezbollah was among the world's most well-armed non-conventional armies, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones, according to US estimates.

That is ten times the size of the armoury the group had in 2006, during its last war with Israel, according to Israeli estimates.

06:21

Over the past year, even more weapons have flowed into Lebanon from Iran, along with significant amounts of financial aid, a source familiar with Hezbollah's thinking said.

There have been few detailed public assessments of how much this arsenal has been damaged by Israel's offensive over the past week, which has hit Hezbollah strongholds in Bekaa Valley, far from Lebanon's border with Israel.

One Western diplomat in the Middle East told Reuters prior to Friday's attack that Hezbollah had lost 20%-25% of its missile capacity in the ongoing conflict, including in hundreds of Israeli strikes this week. The diplomat did not provide evidence or details of their assessment.

An Israeli security official said "a very respectable portion" of Hezbollah's missile stocks had been destroyed, without giving further specifics.

In recent days, Israel has struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets. The security official, when asked about the military's extensive target lists, said Israel had matched Hezbollah's two-decade build up with preparations to prevent it launching its rockets in the first place – a complement to the Iron Dome air defence system that often downs missiles fired at the Jewish state.

Israeli officials say the fact that Hezbollah has only been able to launch a couple of hundred missiles a day in the past week was evidence its capabilities had been diminished.

Iran connection

Before the strike on Nasrallah, three Iranian sources told Reuters Iran was planning to send additional missiles to Hezbollah to prepare for a prolonged war.

The weapons that were to be provided included short-to-medium-range ballistic missiles including Iranian Zelzals and an upgraded precision version known as the Fateh 110, the first Iranian source said.

Reuters was unable to reach the sources after the Nasrallah assassination.

While Iran is willing to provide military support, the two Iranian sources said it does not want to be directly involved in a confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. The rapid escalation in hostilities over the past week follows a year of skirmishes tied to the Gaza war.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards' deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing a state TV report.

Hezbollah may need certain warheads and missiles along with drones and missile parts to replenish those destroyed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon last week, a senior Syrian military intelligence source added.

Read more World figures react to the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

Iranian supplies have in the past reached Hezbollah by air and sea. On Saturday, Lebanon's transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft not to enter its airspace after Israel warned air traffic control at Beirut airport that it would use "force" if the plane landed, a source at the ministry told Reuters.

The source said it was not clear what was on the plane.

Land corridors are currently the best route for missiles, parts and drones, through Iraq and Syria, with the help of allied armed groups in those countries, an Iranian security official told Reuters this week.

The Syrian military source, however, said Israeli drone surveillance and strikes targeting convoys of trucks had compromised that route. This year, Israel stepped up attacks on weapons depots and supply routes in Syria to weaken Hezbollah ahead of any war, Reuters reported in June.

As recently as August, an Israeli drone hit weapons concealed in commercial trailers in Syria, the source said. This week, Israel's military said its warplanes bombed unspecified infrastructure used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah at the Syria-Lebanon border.

Joseph Votel, a former army general who led US forces in the Middle East, said Israel and its allies could well intercept any missiles Iran sent by land to Hezbollah now.

"That might be a risk they're willing to take, frankly," he said.

(Reuters)

Lebanon: a fragile country becomes a new war front

Sunday 27 October 2024, by Joseph Daher



The current Israeli military escalation against Lebanon is part of an Israeli war machine that continues to commit genocide in Gaza, and to bomb Syria, Yemen and Iran,threatening a wider regional war. This is not the first war waged by the state of Israel against Lebanon, always justified as being ‘targeted’ against organisations that Tel Aviv considers terrorist. In the past, it was the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the left-wing Lebanese National Movement. Today, it is Hezbollah. For Lebanon, the current Israeli war is also part of a sequence of crises that began with the popular uprising of 2019 and its subsequent repression, and continued with the Covid pandemic, the port explosion, a power vacuum and an economic collapse from which Lebanon was just beginning to recover.

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Lebanon: a country at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict

Lebanon gained its independence in 1943 following the French Mandate which had been imposed on the country in 1920. Political representation in Lebanon is organised along confessional lines. The Lebanese confessional system (like confessionalism in general) is one of the main instruments used by the ruling classes to reinforce their control over the popular classes, by keeping them subordinate to their confessional leaders.

A confessional political system

At the same time, the Lebanese confessional system was born in parallel with the development of Lebanese capitalism and in interaction with French colonial rule. Since Lebanon’s independence in 1943, the confessional nature of the Lebanese state has served the political and economic elites of the ruling confessional groups, who have relied on the country’s free market economic orientation to consolidate their power. After the end of the civil war in 1989, this power only increased.

Successive Lebanese governments have adopted neo-liberal policies that have led to the deepening of the historically constituted characteristics of the Lebanese economy: a development model centred on finance and services in which social inequalities and regional disparities are very pronounced.

The consequences of the Nakba in Lebanon

Lebanon was affected from the outset by the birth of the state of Israel or Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic) in 1948. In addition to its crimes against the Palestinians, the newly created Israeli army of occupation also committed crimes in Lebanon during this period, notably in the village of Houla at the end of October 1948, massacring all the civilians who had remained there in two days. Lebanon also took in more than 100,000 Palestinian refugees. The United Nations established 16 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. At its peak, the number of Palestinian refugees probably exceeded half a million, or more than 10% of Lebanon’s total population, although UNRWA now estimates the number at around 250,000.

The origins of the civil war from 1982 to 2000

Subsequently, Lebanon suffered numerous attacks by the Israeli army of occupation and several invasions and wars. In 1978, the Israeli army of occupation invaded part of southern Lebanon to combat the Palestinian resistance. Four years after this invasion, the Israeli state began a new invasion, this time extending as far as the capital Beirut.

The aim of the invasion, dubbed ‘Peace for Galilee’ in 1982, was to eliminate the Palestinian resistance, the political presence of the PLO and the progressive Lebanese forces, and to install a friendly regime in Beirut. In this context, the capital underwent a deadly siege and was bombed on a massive scale, finally leading to the expulsion of the PLO forces from Beirut to Tunis in 1982. Following this forced departure of the PLO, the terrible massacres of Sabra and Shatila were committed in September 1982, under the responsibility of the Israeli occupation.

The role of Hezbollah after 2000

The creation and development of Hezbollah was historically linked to various elements of the invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli occupation army in 1982 and the occupation of the country until 2000, as well as to the political dynamics and regional projects of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The occupation of southern Lebanon ended in 2000 with the withdrawal of Israeli troops, with the exception of the Shebaa farms, a disputed area straddling Lebanon and Syria.

The Israeli army of occupation launched a new war against Lebanon in 2006, with the support of the United States, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, including 270 Hezbollah fighters. Israel lost more than 150 people, mainly soldiers. Despite the asymmetry of losses and military strength - both largely in Israel’s favour - Israel failed to achieve its objectives by significantly weakening Hezbollah, both politically and militarily, which Hezbollah considered a political success.

At the same time, and this is a major difference with the current Israeli war on Lebanon, not a single senior Hezbollah leader was killed during the 33 days of war, despite numerous attempts by the Israeli occupation army, including the dropping of 22 tonnes of bombs on a bunker in Beirut supposedly occupied by senior Hezbollah members, or the failure to kidnap key leaders.

After the 2006 war, the Israeli-Lebanese border saw only a few security incidents, most of which occurred between 2013 and 2014, after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising. Hezbollah retaliated militarily against multiple Israeli incursions.

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Lebanon: after 7 October 2023

Following the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip after 7 October 2023, Hezbollah announced its ‘unity of fronts’ strategy, the aim of which was to link the Lebanese front with that of Gaza. The party’s initial aim was to show solidarity with its Palestinian political allies, and to be credible when mobilising the rhetoric of resistance, while seeking to protect its interests and alliances linked to Iran in the region.

Hezbollah’s calculated military operations

The Lebanese movement’s first targets were the Shebaa Farms in occupied Lebanese territory, not Israeli territory directly. Subsequently, they carried out attacks on Israeli military sites. Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s military operations remained calculated and relatively moderate compared with the violence of the Israeli attacks, with the aim of avoiding an all-out war with Israel.

However, the party certainly had no idea that the genocidal war against Gaza would last so long and that Israel would escalate its attacks against Lebanon to such an intense level, with the full support of the United States and major European powers such as France.

Policy of unity of fronts rejected by the Lebanese people

In mid-September 2024, the deadly violence of the Israeli army’s occupation accelerated with military escalation and terrorist operations leading to the murder of around 570 people, the vast majority of them civilians, including 50 children, and thousands of wounded. This was followed by massive bombing campaigns aimed at assassinating Hezbollah’s senior military and political figures, but also killing around two thousand civilians and forcing the displacement of over a million people.

The unity of the fronts is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to defend politically among the Lebanese population. The cost for Lebanon is increasingly heavy, and Hezbollah does not want this conflict to be exploited by its domestic political enemies who would make it the main culprit for all the country’s misfortunes.

Hezbollah finds itself in the most dangerous situation since its creation, and there is no end in sight, as Israel continues its war against Lebanon, which also includes targeting the party’s infrastructure and capabilities. On the national scene, its political and social isolation among the Lebanese population is very likely to increase.

Building an alternative vision of society

Despite the Israeli war and the country’s socio-economic crisis, forms of solidarity with the displaced are being put in place across the country, even if political tensions continue to exist. There is currently no organised progressive political alternative in the country with significant capacity for action, despite unsuccessful attempts in recent years to build such a project, particularly following the popular uprising in 2019. The need to build a genuine counter-hegemonic project, rooted in the country’s popular classes and in coalition with independent social forces such as the trade unions, feminist and anti-racist organisations, remains a necessity for the future of the popular classes in the country, but first the Israeli war machine must be stopped.

October 9

Sources: L’Anticapitaliste, L’Anticapitaliste L’Anticapitaliste

Attached documents

• lebanon-a-fragile-country-becomes-a-new-war-front_a8722.pdf (PDF - 915.1 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8722]

Palestine

• Al-Aqsa Flood, the West and the Holocaust: A Conversation with Gilbert Achcar
• One year after 7 October, Gilbert Achcar discusses the future of Gaza, Lebanon, and the regional conflict
• Biden-Harris Send More U.S. Arms and Troops to the Middle East
• Inside the Hell of Israeli Prisons
• Israel’s Genocidal Campaign: The Struggle Continues

Israel

• Nothing Israel does will serve Syrians’ struggle for freedom
• Why Hezbollah’s still standing despite Israel assassinating Hassan Nasrallah
• Focus turns to Lebanon
• Strategic Reflections on the Escalation of Israeli Intimidation in Lebanon
• Lebanon and the Israeli Strategy of Intimidation

Lebanon

• Hezbollah’s Dilemma
• Israel, Not Iran or Hezbollah, Wants a Wider War
• Had the dead of Majdal Shams been Jewish...
• Is the drumbeat of war on the Israel/Lebanon front a prelude to all-out war?
• Impact of Israeli Genocidal War in Gaza on the Middle East

• Joseph Daher

  Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian academic and activist. He is the author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience (Pluto, 2019) and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God (Pluto, 2016), and founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. He is also co-founder of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists.

International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.