"Four Israeli troops peered into a tunnel shaft in southern Lebanon that they expected to be empty. They were wrong.
A Hezbollah militant hiding inside detonated an improvised explosive device. Another tossed out a grenade. The Israelis then came under fire from Hezbollah encampments miles away. The October ambush left four Israeli soldiers dead and seven injured.
Israel's military has scored significant successes since intensifying its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon nearly two months ago. Israeli officials say they have degraded the Iran-backed Shiite militia's command structure, killed thousands of its fighters and dismantled its infrastructure along the border.
But Israeli soldiers on the ground say Hezbollah is still putting up a fight. A skeleton crew of militants are leaning into guerrilla tactics to inflict losses on the Israelis and keep the war going.
"It wasn't like fighting an army," said an Israeli reservist of another encounter where a militant lay in wait for troops to return to a house they had cleared. Soldiers spotted and killed the militant before he could attack.
Since Israel began a ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon last month, 35 of its troops have been killed there. That made October one of the deadliest months for Israel's military in the year it has been at war. Leaders on both sides say they are using battlefield leverage to push their opponent to agree to a cease-fire on their terms.
In the first month of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, nearly twice that many Israeli soldiers were killed. Israeli military officials say that was a different type of offensive, with soldiers fighting their way into heavily populated urban areas that were defended by Hamas militants. In Lebanon, Israel has used smaller groups of soldiers and staggered its campaign across Israel's 80-mile border with its neighbor. The Lebanese border villages largely were abandoned by civilians before Israeli troops moved in, and lightly guarded by Hezbollah.
Israel has limited most of its operations to about 3 miles into Lebanon, Israeli officials said. In at least 14 border villages, militants mostly have abandoned their positions, and Israeli troops have destroyed armaments and underground fortifications. Israeli officials say they have disrupted preparations laid over years by Hezbollah for an invasion of Israel that they say would have been far larger than the attacks Hamas pulled off on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, ramped up the pace of its barrages after Israeli troops moved into southern Lebanon. The U.S.-designated terrorist group sends an average of about 100 rockets daily toward northern Israel. Hezbollah recently has hit major population centers such as Haifa, and its drones have penetrated air defenses to strike sensitive sites.
A strike this week on a parking lot at the country's main airport demonstrated that Hezbollah retains long-range targeting capabilities, and it can find the gaps in Israel's regular air defenses.
The mounting losses and resilient enemy conjure memories in Israel of its monthlong war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 that left 120 Israeli soldiers dead. That conflict was seen as a failure in Israel.
Since then, Hezbollah has gained more battlefield experience in Syria and bolstered its supplies of Russian and Chinese weapons. Now, with its arsenal depleted and chain of command in tatters, the militants are showing they can still hit Israel's bigger and better-equipped army. "It's still very much an insurgency or guerrilla-type attacks," said Michael Horowitz, the Israel-based head of intelligence for the consulting firm Le Beck.
By late October, Hezbollah was in a state of disarray with many operatives being killed, said Arab and Hezbollah officials. But the group's DNA is enabling it to continue putting up a fight: Low and midlevel commanders on the ground are empowered, and Hezbollah deploys units designed to operate autonomously, according to experts on the group's dynamics. That structure has allowed it to absorb huge blows and deliver punches of its own.
Organized in small self-governing units, Hezbollah fighters are lying in wait inside homes and tunnels peppered throughout the border area. They stay hidden for days or even weeks before launching hit-and-run attacks on Israeli troops, whose deaths and injuries in Lebanon have mainly occurred in such guerrilla-style operations, said military officials and reservists.
"Only one thing will stop this war of aggression, and that is the battlefield," said Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's new leader." [1]
1. World News: Hezbollah Wages Guerrilla Campaign --- Fighters can hide for weeks, then launch hit-and-run attacks on Israeli troops. Lieber, Dov; Peled, Anat; Said, Summer; Malsin, Jared. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 09 Nov 2024: A.10.
Komentarų nėra:
Rašyti komentarą