The Israel-Lebanon border remains the region’s most dangerous flashpoint
The United Nations Security Council is set to hold consultations on Thursday about alleged violations of Resolution 1701, which set the terms to end the war fought between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006, known as the Second Lebanon War. The resolution stipulated that Israel withdraw all of its forces from Lebanon, in parallel with Lebanese and UN soldiers deploying throughout the south. It also called for Hizbullah’s total disarmament and ban on its presence south of the Litani River—obligations which have been totally ignored.
In advance of Thursday’s session, United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley urged the international community to reign in Iran’s Lebanon-based Shiite proxy’s military buildup. It is imperative, she said, to “apply more pressure on Hizbullah to disarm and cease its destabilizing behavior, especially toward Israel.” Otherwise, Haley warned of the potential for “further escalation in regional tensions.”
This concern has been mounting in Israel, which estimates Hizbullah has amassed more than 120,000 missiles over the past decade despite Resolution 1701 which prohibits doing so. Earlier this month, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot defined the army’s “top priority” as preventing Hizbullah’s fighting force from improving the accuracy of its rocket arsenal. More recently, the IDF claimed that Hizbullah—which both Israel and the U.S. have designated as terrorist organizations—was establishing observation posts in southern Lebanon under the guise of a fictional non-governmental organization called “Green Without Borders” and created to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the resolution. Eisenkot accused the organization of preparing for war from inside Lebanese villages, towns and cities, “arming itself with more lethal and accurate weapons to harm the Israeli home front.”
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Israel Ziv, a former head of operations on the IDF General Staff, elaborated on the threat. He told The Media Line that, “Hizbullah today is no longer a terror organization. It’s an army that has over 60,000 combatants and is fully equipped, including with medium and long-range weapons. It is the most experienced army today in the Middle East.”
“In a way, they are more experienced than the IDF,” Ziv explained, “because Israel has thankfully has not fought a war for a while. [The army] has the experience in Gaza [where Israeli forces have waged battle against Hamas three times since 2009], but it does not compare to the high-intensity conflict in Syria.” In this respect, Ziv highlights the capabilities and knowhow Hizbullah has acquired fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, as well as through the training of its troops in Iran. Hizbullah forces were even sent to Iraq to partake in the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State.
Ziv, who commanded the IDF Paratroops Reconnaissance Unit during the 1982 war between Israel and Hizbullah (known in Israel as the First Lebanon War), believes that Tehran—which created Hizbullah in the early 1980s and continues to act as its patron—is the big winner in the changing Middle East. “While the Iranians do not have full authority, nothing that happens there can be decided without them. Iran has become an equal partner in the future of Syria, as it now controls territory.”
It is a widely held conviction among Israel’s security brass, with former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon having declared this week that, “there is no nation called Lebanon, the decisions are made by Iran.… If [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei wants war, then Lebanon will go to war, and every Lebanese [resident] will suffer because all infrastructure will be destroyed.”
Despite this new regional reality, Ziv believes that “an all-out war against Israel is unlikely until Hizbullah ends its heavy involvement in Syria, because it cannot handle two fronts at the same time.” Moreover, even if the war ended in Syria tomorrow, the militant group would still need to recover after suffering heavy losses over many years. Lastly, Ziv explained, “Hizbullah still remembers the Second Lebanon in which the Lebanese Shiite group was decimated and much of southern Lebanon destroyed by the Israeli army.”
Ziv concludes that “Hizbullah remains a serious threat. A ‘Third Lebanon War’ is not a done deal, but remains a possibility.”
For its part, the group has rejected international calls for its disarmament. Hizbullah official Hasan Hob-Allah, in revealing to The Media Line that the group rejected a proposal from Washington offered through third parties to provide Hizbullah with development aid in exchange for giving up its weapons. “Israel is a hostile state,” Hob-Allah charged, “so while the Lebanese lands are freed now, who will protect us from any potential assault? The U.S. and Israel do not respect international agreements or law. For instance, did Israel stop expanding settlements [communities located across the ‘1967 borders’] after signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians? No.”
Hob-Allah believes that Israel understands only one language: Power. Accordingly, he says “Hezbollah continues to develop its strength in southern Lebanon, and suggestions that this threatens regional stability and the international community should be ignored.”
While the Israel-Lebanon border has remained relatively quiet since the end of the 2006 war, tensions are perpetually simmering, with the potential to boil over into full-blown conflict. In this respect, over the past few years Israel has, on multiple occasions, conducted military operations inside both Syria and Lebanon in an effort to prevent advanced weapons from being smuggled to Hizbullah (a so-called “red line” for the Israeli government); this, as errant fire from the fighting on the Syrian Golan Heights regularly lands in northern Israel.
Perhaps the most severe flare-up occurred in January 2015, when the IDF reportedly conducted air strikes against high-ranking Hizbullah operatives in Syria—who were working to set up bases in the area—killing eleven people, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of the late Hizbullah military leader and Imad Mughniyeh, and Mohammed Issa, the head of militant group’s regional operations. Days later, Hizbullah fighters fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF vehicle patrolling the Lebanese border, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven others. Mortar shells were concurrently fired into Israel, posing a threat to civilian communities.
At the time, both sides conveyed to one another—through UN intermediaries—a desire to renew calm; but, today, the conditions on the ground have changed dramatically. Military experts believe that given the chaos, one wrong move—inadvertent or not—at the wrong time could ignite another major conflict.