It took the Israeli army 80 bombs and almost 20 years of preparation to eliminate Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, in a strike in Beirut on Friday, September 27, the civilian casualties of which are still unknown three days later. This is the time that has elapsed since Israel’s previous war in Lebanon in 2006.
The 33-day conflict, which included a ground invasion, was marked by bombardments that devastated infrastructure and led to the deaths of almost 1,200 Lebanese people, without achieving any clear military successes. On July 19, 2006, the Israeli air force attempted to eliminate Nasrallah, who was taking refuge in an underground bunker in Beirut. Thirty tonnes of bombs were dropped on the southern suburbs, but Nasrallah emerged from the rubble a hero.
Radical changes after 2006
After the negotiated end of the conflict, Nasrallah celebrated the “divine victory” of his troops, while a commission of inquiry on the Israeli side examined the dysfunctions of their own campaign. Having gone to war to “re-establish its ability to act as a deterrent” after the kidnapping of two soldiers, the Israeli army had returned with a high number of casualties (117 soldiers killed) and left the impression of an aborted mission.
Analysis of these 2006 failures led to radical changes, designed to take revenge for this humiliating episode, with a reorientation of the army’s priorities and resources. “From that moment on, the armed forces and the intelligence community focused on what was called the ‘threat from the North’, which was not limited to Hezbollah, but included Iran, the Revolutionary Guards or Syria,” explained Miri Eisin, director of the Counter-Terrorism Institute at Reichmann University in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. “From this focus emerged a doctrine on how to dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities, attacking command and communications as a priority.”
A “weak point” was detected, noted the former military intelligence officer: Hezbollah’s increasing need for communications, linked to the rapid development of its capabilities. At the same time, with Iran’s help, the Shiite party was also developing a major arsenal of rockets, missiles (some of them guided) and, soon, drones. A strike force estimated by the Israeli army at over 100,000 “projectiles.” This arsenal was also to be the focus of all the military staff’s attention. It required a huge share of resources, against a backdrop of increasing reliance on high technology, at the expense of the classic infantry and artillery sectors.
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