When Hezbollah Entered the War, It Seemed as Though the IDF Had Popped Champagne Bottles. “Hezbollah Fell Into a Strategic Ambush,” Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo told the heads of northern communities. That was the general line of all the briefings. We had been waiting for this mistake, we had prepared a detailed plan for how to neutralize it, and now Hezbollah had given us the opportunity to put it into practice. Two weeks later, it seems that even the IDF is no longer certain that we weren’t the ones who fell into a trap.
Since the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, Israel had enjoyed an unprecedented situation in the north. Complete quiet, the IDF operating freely in Lebanon, continuing to strike Hezbollah and kill hundreds of its operatives, the Lebanese government growing stronger, Hezbollah afraid to respond, and a sense of security returning to the north. Hezbollah had not disappeared, of course. It tried to rebuild and rearm, but it entered the war with a feeble barrage, almost as though it was deliberately ensuring that nothing would happen as a result, presumably bound by its prewar promise that its red line was the killing of Khamenei. Clearly, the barrage could not go unanswered, but it could have been met with a proportionate response, allowing the positive process in Lebanon to continue.
Instead, we attacked the Dahiyeh with great force, carried out assassinations, flattened buildings, and once again issued an evacuation order to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, forcing them to leave their homes in villages across southern Lebanon. “This move is creating significant pressure on Hezbollah among its support base,” the IDF briefed. That assessment can certainly be questioned. There is no doubt that Hezbollah is experiencing the worst internal crisis in its history, but Israel risks crossing the delicate line of weakening the Lebanese government — which would be the least intelligent thing it could do.
For example, bombing the bridge crossing the Litani on the claim that Hezbollah fighters had used it is, to put it mildly, irrational. The major problem right now is that Israel’s leadership — from the prime minister, through the defense minister, to the IDF chief of staff — has climbed far too high up a tree. It is difficult to understand how the actions they ordered will produce the outcome they promised the public. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Katz, and Eyal Zamir promised that the Hezbollah threat would be completely removed and that we would disarm it. As a reminder, Israel failed to disarm the weaker Hamas over the course of two years.
The IDF spokesperson keeps releasing more and more videos of destruction in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, as though what really matters is convincing the Israeli public that Israel is destroying buildings. Will that cause Hezbollah to disarm?
At the same time, IDF troops are once again entering southern Lebanon by ground, on the claim that this will create an “additional layer of protection” for northern residents. The defense minister even added a retaliatory justification: “They will pay on the ground” for their attacks. Will they be the ones to pay for a ground presence in southern Lebanon? Haven’t we already learned that those who will pay will be us? In the public messaging surrounding the ground operations, the security blanket for northern residents was actually damaged — after it became clear that there are Radwan fighters south of the Litani, contrary to what residents had been told for a year and a quarter.
The Lebanese government, courageously and together with France, is now offering Israel a ladder to climb down from the tree: direct negotiations to establish security arrangements. The Lebanese government has gone as far as possible in isolating and confronting Hezbollah. We should strengthen them. On the face of it, we are even being offered a strategic prize in the form of Lebanon recognizing Israel.
Through the forceful approach, Israel will apparently succeed in weakening Hezbollah further, but it will remain. It may even manage to rebuild, and it is doubtful whether the Lebanese government will emerge from this confrontation strong enough to fight it. The question is whether, in the post-trauma of October 7, anyone is still capable of thinking about non-military ways of dealing with threats.