Israel’s offensive on Lebanon opens a new phase in the war that Israel began against Gaza almost a year ago. The military land invasion undertaken in southern Lebanon expands the fronts and regional implications of a conflict until now centered on the Palestinian strip. The confrontation with Lebanon raises more questions than certainties regarding the land invasion that Israeli soldiers undertook on Monday, crossing the border with their northern neighbor, and that on Wednesday cost the lives of eight of them and on Thursday another one. . The precedent of Gaza itself – and, further away from the region, that of Ukraine – constitute two good examples of conflicts with no clear solution, a scenario that may be aggravated in the case of Lebanon.
The duration is unknown. But there are other doubts yet to be resolved, such as how much Lebanese territory Israeli troops will invade or with what potential they will decide to do so after almost 12 months of fighting. It also raises doubts about whether Israel will be able to eliminate Hezbollah resistance in southern Lebanon, especially the Radwan Corps, its special forces. Or whether evacuees from northern Israel will be able to return to their homes, a primary objective that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set. Above all, conflict can have a high cost of casualties on both sides. The only question that has been partially clarified so far has been the Iranian response, which took place on Tuesday with the launch of 180 missiles towards Israel, in the worst offensive ever launched by the ayatollah regime, which caused one death, a Palestinian in the Occupied West Bank.
STR (EFE)
The Israeli army, which continues to reinforce its presence on the border and on Lebanese soil, has announced that it is carrying out “limited, localized and selective” incursions. Although these skirmishes to test the terrain with which the invasion has begun are somewhat reminiscent of the Israeli strategy launched in the Palestinian Strip at the end of October 2023, the extension of Lebanon, despite being a small country, is not that of Gaza (barely 365 square kilometers). Nor is the enormous military power of the Lebanese Shiite party-militia—despite the severe blows suffered in recent days—comparable with the more limited weapons and human capacity of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance. They assure that they are confronting the invading military in close-range combat and continue launching dozens of missiles daily towards the southern neighbor. Meanwhile, the Jewish State maintains its combat aviation very active not only in the south, but also in the capital, Beirut.
The challenge is enormous. Israel “under no circumstances should underestimate the capabilities and means that Hezbollah still retains,” warns military analyst Yossi Yehoshua in the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth. The current invasion “will pose a dramatic challenge for the ground forces, which will face a well-trained military force in their territory,” he adds, convinced that the latest blows dealt will not prevent the militia from reorganizing its command team and its process. decision making. “This is not going to be a walk in the park. Soldiers stepping onto that cursed ground are likely to encounter roadside bombs, booby-trapped cars, and anti-tank missile fire. There is also no doubt that Israel will pay a painful price,” Yehoshua predicts.
The Jewish State is going to try to make the incursion something “clear, crisp and very brief,” estimates Kobi Michael, an Israeli analyst at the Institute for the Study of National Security (INSS) and the Misgav Institute. But doubts soon surface in his speech. “I can’t say for sure if it will end up being something long-term,” although “I don’t think it’s what Israel intends to do,” he adds by phone. He believes that his country has been pushed into the land invasion because neither the Lebanese Government nor Hezbollah nor the international peacekeeping troops of the UN, among which there are 669 Spaniards, are able to apply resolution 1,701, which prohibits the militia from activity in the border environment since 2006. Since “others cannot be trusted to do that job”, then “Israel will do whatever is necessary” in Lebanon, Michael justifies.
Israel has already experienced two previous wars with its northern neighbor. The first began with the 1982 invasion, coinciding with the birth of Hezbollah, and lasted until 1990, although it was not until a decade later, in 2000, that the Israeli military vacated the neighboring country. The second war and the last Israeli invasion of Lebanon, for a month in the summer of 2006, is still very present among the population today. It is especially remembered by those who live in the north or among those 60,000 inhabitants who have been displaced from the towns closest to the border for months and whose return has become a priority for the Government.
Israel has no intention of remaining inside Lebanese territory for a long time, believes Kobi Michael, but it does intend to strike blows at “strategic” and “crucial” points based on the indications of its intelligence to try to eliminate the threat of Hezbollah and make it return. safely that evacuated population. “We have to clean that area,” says the security specialist, referring to the strip of land that surrounds the demarcation of both countries. But, if the authorities finally consider that it is necessary for the troops to stay, the expert understands that it will be done on a limited basis until an alternative authority to the Israeli army is achieved.

ATEF SAFADI (EFE)
Israel has insisted that these 18 years since 2006 have served to strengthen Hezbollah and become a weapons power with tens of thousands of troops that even surpasses the local Lebanese army. Hence the attacks launched against its leadership, its militiamen and its arsenal in recent weeks as a prelude to the invasion. The current situation is very different from 2006 due to these various open fronts – up to seven, according to Israel’s count – and the accumulation of months of conflict between the hundreds of thousands of mobilized Israeli soldiers, most of them reservists joined the ranks after the great Hamas-led massacre of about 1,200 people on October 7, 2023.
That same day, Israel launched its response by bombing the Strip with its aircraft. He was joined days later by several land raids and skirmishes as a prologue to the great invasion. It was on Friday the 27th when the troops advanced to remain definitively in Gaza, the main theater of the current war to date, where more than 41,000 people have already died. Almost a year later, no one dares to predict when a withdrawal will take place. Nor from Lebanon.
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