What is Israel’s Plan in the North?

How will it return its citizens in the North to their homes?

After the first few days of the war, when Hezbollah started sending anti-tank rockets to Israeli positions across the border, Israel responded with artillery directed at the sources of Hezbollah fire.   After those first confusing days Israel started proactively hunting for the anti-tank units and shot at them before they could fire – or at least tried to.    Then, as Hezbollah shooting became more and more fierce, Israel started to use unmanned aircraft and finally helicopters and fighter jets in order to go deeper into Lebanon to take out Hezbollah outposts and weapons depots.  Israel also continued attacks in Syria to interdict Iranian arms supplies to Hezbollah and the Shiite militias that are gathering near the Israel-Syrian border.

Although no one will admit it, Israel and Hezbollah are at war although neither side is, as yet, willing to cross the border with ground troops.  The Hezbollah plan to kill civilians, Hamas style, has been deterred by aggressive fire at Hezbollah positions.  Israel also evacuated most of the border area as the IDF felt this was the only way to more fully protect civilians along the border from infiltration of Hezbollah fighters as well as against cross border anti-tank and mortar fire.  Despite that several Israeli civilians have been killed or wounded over the last weeks.

However, it brought another problem for the government and the IDF to solve – when and under what circumstances can its citizens return to their homes?  This is a key question because Israel cannot tolerate the abandonment of its towns, villages and kibbutzim.

The same thing was done with the towns and villages on the Gazan border but there, at least, it was clear that the destruction of Hamas would provide the security necessary to allow people to return.    

What then is Israel’s endgame in the north that will allow its citizens to return to their homes? 

Over the last few days both sides have intensified their attacks with Hezbollah continuing to try to hit Israeli army positions on the border as well as sending rockets to larger towns to the north of the Haifa-Tiberias line.   Moving to hit Haifa via rockets or points to the south of it would probably be the red-line that would force Israel into a ground war.    That does not seem to be Hezbollah’s desire now although we should not underestimate their desire to fight.  Also, it is an open secret that in spite of Israel, in 2018-9, destroying the major Hezbollah tunnels leading into israel, there are still some tunnels that go from Lebanon to Israel.   It does not seem that Israel knows where or how many there are – although it could be that they do.

Israel though has now taken the initiative and is starting to buzz Beirut, hit arms depots deeper in Lebanon and has destroyed at least one long range missile and launcher that was en-route to the south of Lebanon.   

More interestingly, Israel seems to be systematically hitting and destroying Hezbollah positions close to the border that are used for surveillance, anti-tank attacks and forward positions for raids across the border.    Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah does not put all of its forces in civilian areas.   Although it is known that missile and rocket launchers are embedded in Lebanese villages and many of these villages will be hit during an all-out war,  Lebanese terrain demands that Hezbollah pick strategic vantage points on mountains and build independent bases there.   They have a deep bunker system to protect them from Israeli jets and artillery fire, but this is not the interconnected tunnel system that Hamas has.  That will mean different tactics need to be used by the IDF than are used in Gaza but it also means that once captured, these outposts can be destroyed without hitting surrounding civilian areas.  That won’t be the case through, with the need to suppress rocket and missile fire.  

There can be two reasons why Israel is looking to destroy the Hezbollah presence along the border.   The first of course is that it is clearing the way for a ground invasion that, combined with pre-emptive attacks on Hezbollah rocket and missile depots throughout the country, would allow the IDF to attain control of enough land and degrade enough Hezbollah capabilities within a week to 10 days.     This of course is a dangerous course of action with a war still going on in Gaza as well as threats from Yemen and Syria.  But it is do-able for the IDF and hundreds of thousands of troops are mobilized for this possibility.

But there is a second and safer alternative to this.  If Israel does succeed in destroying or thoroughly degrading the Hezbollah presence at the border and destroys most ammunition dumps within 5-10 km’s of the border, Israel might then turn to a diplomatic effort to enforce UN resolution 1701, ( yet another failed UN resolution) that ended the Second Lebanese War of 2006.

This is the partial text of this UN Resolution:

“[The Security Council] calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:…the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon.”

The Blue Line is the internationally recognized border between Israel and Lebanon.  There are parts of the Litani that are only 4 km’s from Israel (in the east near Nabatiyeh) but for the most part the Litani is 25-30 km’s from Israel.    The long term goal of Israel since the PLO used Lebanon to attack Israel in the mid-1970’s has been to clear the area from the border to the Litani, of hostile elements.  If Hezbollah below the Litani can be radically degraded over the next few weeks by relentless artillery and air fire and if the US, the main Arab countries, other Lebanese groups and the government, as well as France (which historically has had influence in Lebanon) can force Hezbollah’s hand, a full scale war can be avoided and Israel can return its citizens to their homes on the border.   This is the massive use and threat of force that is called deterrence – a word replaced in the west as it concentrates instead on not “provoking” its enemies.

Without the destruction of Hezbollah’s border bases no diplomatic effort will succeed.  However,  Hezbollah has suffered (and they have lost about 200 fighters so far, with nothing to show for it) and if they see that Israel is serious about an invasion and their destruction, they might be tempted to put off the fight for another day, blaming their Sunni Hamas cousins early attack (the plan according to some sources, was to wait for a nuclear Iran) for their need to withdraw.  This of course is all dependent upon a non-nuclear Iran which the US and the West is doing nothing to prevent.

One might even hope that a Kissinger-like effort to cut Hezbollah and Lebanon off from Iran would be attempted but that would mean that the West would suddenly have leadership worthy of its ideals and people.  That would mean that the US and the West would fully grasp the threat of the Russia-Iran-China Axis to its way of life and its existence.   This, we know, is beyond the intellectual capabilities of current Western leadership.

Is the plan of Israel in the north to use its military might for force a diplomatic solution?  I can only speculate but it seems on the face of it, the only way, short of a full ground war, that Israel can return its citizens to their homes in the north.   No Israeli government, ever, can permit a situation, again, where its towns, villages, cities and kibbutzim are under threat of massacre.  This is something that is surely being ignored in the State Department as they still dream of a sweet, peaceful Islamic Republic of Iran, but will be the policy of any and every government elected in Israel.  

There will no longer be faith in only electronic surveillance to prevent the next massacre.   The terrorists must, on all fronts, be pushed far from the homes of Israeli citizens.   It is happening in Gaza, being done in the West Bank and either through deterrence and diplomacy, or war – will be accomplished on the border with Lebanon.