A limited Lebanon raid with narrow goals is no game-changer, but comes with risks
Hezbollah is on its back foot, but we don’t know what that means for its anti-tank teams, who can hit Israel from deep inside enemy territory; long-term questions remain unanswered
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
On Monday night, after leaks from Washington and ample hints from Israeli leaders, IDF troops from the 98th Division crossed into Lebanon.
It was the first time Israel had operated overtly and in force across its northern border in the year-long fight that Hezbollah started on October 8, 2023.
Though the move is occupying headlines and the attention of world leaders, the scale of the operation shouldn’t be overstated.
The operation, which really can’t be called a full ground maneuver, has troops moving a few hundred yards — and in some cases a couple of kilometers — into Lebanon.
So far, there have not been clashes with enemy fighters, since Hezbollah simply is not there anymore. It didn’t flee in the face of charging IDF columns; Hezbollah pulled most of its elite Radwan force from the border once the potential for a surprise invasion of the north disappeared with Hamas’s attacks on October 7.
Other Hezbollah units, including those meant to bleed an IDF incursion, were also pulled back as they were being picked off by Israeli strikes.
In dozens of raids into Lebanon in the last year, IDF forces encountered no opposition. They also destroyed weapons and infrastructure that would have been used in an October 7-style attack on northern Israel.
The idea of the current operation is certainly not to defeat Hezbollah, nor is it designed to engage and kill its fighters. It is primarily an engineering operation, meant to uproot military infrastructure along the border — rocket launch sites, tunnels, defensive positions, and command bunkers.
It is not a new idea. The IDF Northern Command developed a similar plan called Ya’eh Na’eh (a phrase approximating Clean Sweep) ahead of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, but it was never implemented.
Moreover, Israeli commandoes have been quietly carrying out similar raids for months.
Though the aim seems to be a tidy, short operation, there are unanswered questions, and there are risks.
The main threat posed by Hezbollah to residents of Israeli border communities, beyond that of an invasion, is anti-tank missile fire. Hezbollah anti-tank missile teams are highly mobile, firing from cover provided by the thick vegetation and civilian areas in southern Lebanon. Destroying bunkers and prepared positions doesn’t alleviate that threat in any meaningful way.
Moreover, Hezbollah’s Russian-made Kornet and Iranian-made Almas anti-tank missiles have ranges of over eight kilometers (five miles). Emptying the immediate border area of Hezbollah forces doesn’t prevent its missile teams from firing from the ridges overlooking Israel’s border.
Though Hezbollah hasn’t mounted any resistance thus far, it could well be capable of doing so.
It is clear that Israeli operations over the past two weeks have been stunningly successful in eliminating Hezbollah’s senior echelon and in knocking the entire organization off balance.
The question is how far that has seeped down to the tactical teams in the field, and how long Israel’s advantage will last against an organization that has proved highly resilient and adaptable.
Hezbollah’s sporadic rocket fire into Israel is certainly not the fire plan it prepared for years in case of a conflict with Israel, and indicates a significant level of confusion, for now at least.
If Hezbollah is able to coordinate attacks along the border, the targets are there in the open. The location of Israeli forces is no secret, and destroying infrastructure is slow work. After being hammered in very public and humiliating ways for weeks, the self-declared “defender of Lebanon” may decide it needs to restore its image with a successful attack against Israeli troops on Lebanese soil.
Still, the IDF has plenty of means of protecting its ground forces. It has ample drones to monitor the heights overlooking the border and to strike any approaching Hezbollah fighters quickly and effectively. Artillery inside of Israel is firing at potential ambush sites in an attempt to scare off any would-be attackers and eliminate any foolish enough to approach.
But Israel is only operating in one small sector along the finger that juts north along the Hula Valley and is doing so in a very transparent manner. If it decides to copy-paste the same operation in the western sector, where the topography is even more advantageous for Hezbollah, the terror group will have time to prepare a concerted ambush that it hopes will exact a high price from IDF forces.
If that does happen, it is hard to imagine the IDF refraining from changing its method, and stationing additional forces on key terrain to protect the units destroying enemy positions. That will mean that the mission has expanded, and the troops securing the ridgelines could also come under fire from further north.
Creeping into a decisive war against Hezbollah — something Israel’s senior leadership isn’t looking to do right now — is the worst way to go about the task.
It would mean a slow campaign, from the most predictable direction, and would feature none of the advantages that the highly mobile IDF would enjoy in a campaign it designed from the outset. Better to try to land the knockout blow at a time of Israel’s choosing, with formations showing up from surprising locations before slicing through overwhelmed Hezbollah defenders.
But Israel isn’t there yet. For now, it is trying to degrade Hezbollah capabilities from the air by taking out weapons caches and commanders, alongside the engineering work north of the border.
Israel is hoping that the dizzying blows the Shiite terror group has received will be enough to finally convince it to end what has been a disastrous fight it picked against the Jewish state.
If Hezbollah does finally come to that conclusion, a renewed UN Security Council Resolution 1701 will see the Lebanese Armed Forces and the multinational UNIFIL force back in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, for the time being, will have to complete its pullout from the border area and beyond.
That will probably be enough for residents of northern Israel to return to their homes. But they shouldn’t expect the threat to be permanently removed.
As Hezbollah did over the past decade, it will again look for ways to slowly slip forces southward, taking advantage of the weakness of the LAF and UNIFIL, and the presence of supportive Shiite villages on the border.
And it will retain some measure of deterrence against Israel in the form of rockets, though the country has seen some of what Hezbollah can throw at it, and it hasn’t been the firestorm many feared.
Israel will have to enforce the agreement occasionally, something that will be difficult with the presence of foreign peacekeepers, and a sure recipe for new tensions with the UN and countries like France.
For now, Israel is on a winning streak, one that has surprised even outspoken critics of Israel’s defense establishment. It has opened a window in which it is degrading Hezbollah as much as it can before the terror group cries uncle or international developments — like elections in the US — indicate that pulling back is the better choice.
The fruits of Israel’s success might last for years. But Hezbollah and its patron in Tehran will be working furiously to make sure they don’t.
