Israel never managed to defeat Hezbollah during its 15-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
Nor did they succeed in doing that during the 34-day war in 2006, when more than 4,000 rockets rained down on Israel.
Although it was primarily a question of imprecise Katyusha rockets with a range of just under 30 kilometers, 165 Israelis were killed in the war. Just over 120 of them were soldiers.
Attack naval vessels
The biggest surprise came when the Israeli Navy’s flagship Hanit was hit by a Hezbollah rocket off the coast of Lebanon in July 2006.
Four of the crew were killed when the Chinese-developed C-802 missile hit the ship.
Israeli intelligence suspected that Hezbollah was in possession of such rockets, but today there is no doubt that the militia, with good help from Iran, has built up a much larger arsenal of advanced weapons.
– We have now reached a point where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most countries in the world, noted the then US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates all the way back in 2010.
Scary picture
The American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has analyzed Hezbollah’s military capabilities and paints a frightening picture, not least seen from Israeli eyes.
When the 2006 war ended, CSIS estimated that the Lebanese militia still had about 15,000 rockets left. Five years ago, the estimate was around 130,000 rockets.
The US Military Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimated in 2019 that Hezbollah was in possession of 150,000 rockets, while Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) believe that today there may be up to 200,000 rockets.
Hezbollah’s ability to attack is “very impressive”, states INSS.
Can reach all of Israel
Large quantities of Katyusha rockets are placed near the border with Israel, while Scud missiles with a range of over 500 kilometers is hidden in underground facilities in northern Lebanon.
Just as big a threat to Israel are the Iranian-produced ones The Fateh rockets which has a range of 300 kilometers. They have warheads of up to 500 kilograms, are satellite-guided and can be fired from mobile ramps.
Both of these rocket systems can thus hit targets all over Israel, and with a great degree of precision.
The mobile ramps are hidden in extensive underground tunnel networks, as demonstrated by Hezbollah in propaganda-video i august.
In the video, you could also see a large rocket battery, trucks, motorcycles and soldiers inside the tunnels.
– Our mountains are our arsenals, read the title of the video.
Threatening aircraft carriers
Hezbollah is also said to have secured more advanced missiles for use against naval targets, probably Russian Yakhont missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers.
This worries the US which is now sending the aircraft carrier USS Truman and three support vessels to the Mediterranean.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has previously warned the US against interfering in the conflict.
– We are not intimidated he said last November, adding that the militia has surprises in store if US vessels approach.
Laser guided
Hezbollah also has large quantities of armor-piercing rockets, which the Israeli forces noticed in 2006.
Over 50 Israeli Merkava tanks were destroyed during that war, and today the Lebanese militia is far better equipped in this area.
Laser-guided and heat-seeking anti-tank missiles of the type AT-14 can hit targets up to 5 kilometers away and will be highly effective against Israeli ground forces.
Air defense
In the last 15 years, Hezbollah has also secured far better air defense than before. Among other things, the militia has the Russian-developed Pantsir system, which consists of both artillery guns and heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles.
This did not prevent Israeli warplanes from attacking over 1,000 targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Monday, but some of the air defenses are probably located where the militia’s long-range rockets are hidden.
Experts also believe they have upgraded homing AA-10 missiles of the same type that the Houthi militia in Yemen recently used when they shot down a large American MQ-9 drone.
Sophisticated drones
Hezbollah itself has a large fleet of advanced drones, most of them Iranian, experts note.
The Israeli think tank Alma estimates that Hezbollah has at least 2,000 drones. Some of them – such as the Shaheed 129 – have a range of hundreds of kilometres, can stay in the air for up to a day and are equipped with bombs and rockets.
In mid-May, Hezbollah shot down Sky Dew, one of Israel’s most important tools for monitoring the airspace in the north and enabling the country’s air defenses to shoot down rockets from Lebanon.
The large balloon was high in the air above an Israeli military base, 35 kilometers from the border. It was hit by a target-guided Ababil attack drone.
The militia has also alarmed Israel by sending unmanned drones near Israeli oil and gas installations in the Mediterranean, as well as military installations and other strategically important targets in Israel.
One such drone filmed, among other things, the Israeli airbase Ramat David, which only became known when Hezbollah published the images earlier this year.
Militia at home
On the other hand, no one believes in an Israeli ground invasion in southern Lebanon. There, Israeli forces will be away, facing a militia that is at home.
The losses from the 15-year occupation of southern Lebanon have not been forgotten, nor has the resistance faced by Israeli ground forces in 2006.
Hassan Nasrallah claims that Hezbollah has 100,000 men under arms, and many of the soldiers are highly trained. This applies not least to the commandos in the militia’s elite unit, the Redwan force.
A number of leaders and middle leaders in Hezbollah have rightly been taken down in the past year, some in attacks and assassinations and others more recently with the help of explosive charges in pagers and hand-held communication radios.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the explosive charges, but few doubt who was behind them.
#Israel #defeat #Hezbollah
2024-09-25 09:29:07
