2023-10-30 19:31:08
The Israeli flag and the Lebanese Hezbollah flag in an illustrative Archyde.com photo taken on October 15, 2023. Photograph: Dado Rović/Archyde.com. reuters_tickers
This content was published on October 30, 2023 – 20:31 July, October 30, 2023 – 20:31
By Laila Bassam and Tom Perry
BEIRUT (Archyde.com) – With dozens of its fighters killed during three weeks of clashes on the border with Israel, Lebanese Hezbollah has begun taking measures to limit its losses as it prepares for the possibility of a prolonged conflict, three sources familiar with the party’s plans said.
The Iranian-backed Shiite group has lost 47 of its fighters in Israeli strikes on the Lebanese border since the outbreak of war between Hamas, its Palestinian ally, and Israel on October 7, which represents regarding a fifth of the number of deaths that fell in a large-scale war with Israel in 2006.
With most of them killed in Israeli drone strikes, Hezbollah revealed its surface-to-air missile capabilities for the first time and announced on Sunday that it had shot down an Israeli drone.
The Israeli army did not comment on the incident. Israel said on Saturday that it had responded to a surface-to-air missile fired from Lebanon at one of its drones, and that it had responded by bombing the launch site.
One of the informed sources told Archyde.com that the use of anti-aircraft missiles was one of the many steps taken by Hezbollah to limit its losses and confront the Israeli drones attacking its fighters in the rugged terrain and olive groves on the border.
The source added that Hezbollah had made “arrangements to reduce the number of martyrs” without going into details.
Since the beginning of the war between Hamas and Israel, Hezbollah’s attacks have been balanced to contain clashes in the border area, even while indicating its readiness for an all-out war if necessary, informed sources say.
Israel, which is waging a war in the Gaza Strip with the aim of destroying Hamas, said it did not want a conflict to erupt on its northern front with Lebanon, but warned that it would wreak havoc on Lebanon in the event of a war.
Hezbollah, Tehran’s strongest ally in the Iranian “axis of resistance,” has repeatedly said that it has strengthened its weapons arsenal since 2006, and warned Israel that its forces pose a stronger threat than before. He says his arsenal now includes drones and missiles that can strike all parts of Israel.
Other militants, including Hamas and the Lebanese Sunni Islamic group, have fired rockets from southern Lebanon at Israel since October 7.
But Hezbollah did not launch rockets such as Katyushas and others that might reach deep into Israeli territory because this step might lead to escalation.
Instead, Hezbollah fighters fired on visible targets across the border with Israel, using weapons including Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, the three sources said. The Kornet, developed by Russia, was widely used by Hezbollah once morest Israeli tanks in 2006.
This helped contain the clashes but left Hezbollah fighters more vulnerable because such attacks must be carried out from positions close to the border, where Hezbollah fighters lurk behind rocks and trees to have an opportunity to attack.
“Martyrs on the road to Jerusalem”
The sources said that some fighters downplayed the threat of the marches following years of fighting in Syria, where they fought armed groups that did not possess the equipment that the Israeli army possesses. Hezbollah played a decisive role in helping President Bashar al-Assad defeat the armed Syrian opposition.
Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, said, “It is the technological superiority of the Israeli marches that leads to the fall of this number of fighters,” noting that the war is taking place within a very narrow area.
Security sources in Lebanon say that the Israeli bombing has expanded in recent days, and this included launching a raid on Jabal al-Safi, a mountainous area far from the border, on Saturday, and raids on homes in the south.
Hezbollah did not comment on the reports regarding the strike on Jabal al-Safi.
Hezbollah lost 263 fighters in the 2006 war, which began when its fighters crossed the border into Israel, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed others.
The fall of this number of Hezbollah fighters was a shock to its supporters. The organization’s Al-Manar channel used to broadcast daily funerals for fighters who fell in battle, and they were buried with military honors following their coffins were covered with the organization’s yellow and green flag.
Last week, Hezbollah published a handwritten letter from its Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, to the media urging them to describe the fighters who fall in this battle with the phrase “martyrs on the road to Jerusalem.”
Hezbollah accuses Israel of concealing the number of its deaths. So far, Israel has said that seven of its soldiers have been killed in violence on the Lebanese border since October 7.
(Edited by Hassan Ammar)
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