In Lebanon wars, the rules have changed for Israel

During the last Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, the Lebanese resistance forces, led by Hezbollah, mostly stayed north of the border. Aside from a brief border skirmish that resulted in the capture of several Israeli occupation soldiers, the resistance largely fought a defensive campaign.

To defend against the massive Israeli bombardment campaign, which deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, Hezbollah’s well organized, trained and armed forces took to a hidden network of bunkers and tunnels that kept their fighters and artillery safe from the enemy.

Although Hezbollah’s retaliatory rockets fire rained down on Israeli economic and military targets in the north of occupied Palestine (also known as Israel), resistance ground forces did not enter the country, preferring to play to their strengths and fight a defensive campaign on home turf.

The strategy worked, and Israeli ground forces did not get very far into the country, meeting stiff resistance at every turn. Israel’s massive and indiscriminate aerial bombardment left over 1,000 Lebanese civilians dead.

But the next time Israel decides to inflict war on Lebanon, it will not be able to count on resistance ground forces staying north of the border, as they did during the 2006 ground war. The calculus has fundamentally changed.

In the spring of 2013, Hezbollah entered the civil war in Syria, in support of Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian government. This has given their fighters vital ground-war combat experience.

Syria has been an important supporter of the Lebanese resistance forces. As well as supplying arms to the resistance, Syrian territory is used to transit important supplies of Iranian weapons into Lebanon. The party’s leader Hassan Nasrallah never forgot all that, and several important Syrian government campaigns to win back territory lost to insurgents would not have been won without the key backing of Hezbollah forces.

In addition to the bonds of loyalty between Assad and Hezbollah, rebels in Syria have carried out several bloody sectarian attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon – in response to Hezbollah intervention, they claim. The party’s Shi’a popular support base in Lebanon had been crying out for Hezbollah to go on the offensive in Syria.

The experience Hezbollah ground troops have gained fighting in Syria will now alter the balance of forces on the ground when it comes to the war between Israel and the Lebanese resistance.

Fighting what was arguably a war of choice, which was in large part fought door-to-door in urban environments, will provide Hezbollah veterans with vital combat experience. It means that the resistance would be well placed to go on the offensive in the event of a new Israel-imposed war on Lebanon.

Reports in the Israeli press last week seemed to confirm this, as Haaretz quoted an Israeli military intelligence official making the very same point.

Even as far back as 2012, Nasrallah made a clear allusion to having the capability to take the war to the enemy in a more direct fashion: “I tell the resistance fighters to be prepared for the day when war is imposed on Lebanon. Then, the resistance leadership might ask you to lead the resistance to liberate the Galilee,” he reportedly said.

The party has reportedly run training exercises with structures mocked up to stand in for Israeli homes.

Lebanese paper The Daily Star said: “The tactic is a natural next step in Hezbollah’s military evolution. It would force the Israeli army to fight on Israeli territory, reversing Israel’s long-standing doctrine of fighting its wars on the soil of its neighbours. Hezbollah’s battles in Syria, where the cadres are fighting relatively fast-moving offensive operations, provide useful experience in the context of a future incursion into Israel.”

The psychological battle has already been lost for Israel since Hezbollah drove the Israeli occupation out of south Lebanon in 2000. In the next war, could it even lose territory to Hezbollah?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.