According to Lebanon’s health ministry, almost 400 people have been killed since the rocket salvo fired by pro-Iranian Hizbullah fighters towards Israel last Monday. The fatalities reportedly included 83 children and 42 women.
While the number of projectiles fired daily from Iran at Israel is on a downward curve, the clashes on Israel’s northern border appear to be escalating.
On Sunday, Israel confirmed two of its soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon – the country’s first fatalities since hostilities resumed. The development is likely to prompt a more belligerent response from Israel. Seven of its soldiers were also wounded over the weekend in two ambushes by Hizbullah militants.
According to Israeli officials, the central objective of the campaign in Lebanon is to weaken Hizbullah and ultimately disarm the powerful Shia militia. “The combination of strikes on Iran and Hizbullah will give the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) a unique window of opportunity in which conditions may emerge to dismantle Hizbullah,” they said.
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At the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, Hizbullah had some 150,000 rockets. The group subsequently suffered a crushing defeat, but it still has a few thousand rockets and a large array of drones. Also, it has the capability to fire anti-tank missiles at Israeli positions.
The IDF said it has struck 600 Hizbullah infrastructure targets and killed 200 operatives over the past week. It has conducted 27 waves of strikes in the Beirut region, including five in the Dahiya neighbourhood, a Hizbullah stronghold. Of the 200 militants Israel claims to have killed, the IDF says 80 were members of Hizbullah’s elite Radwan force.
Israeli attacks on Sunday targeted commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force. The Israeli military said it would “not allow Iranian terrorist elements to establish themselves in Lebanese territory”. Iranian diplomats have already fled the country, along with Revolutionary Guards, after being ordered out by the Beirut government.
Israel has ordered all residents south of the Litani river to leave their homes along with residents of Beirut’s Dahiya quarter. More than 400,000 residents are now homeless, creating an instant humanitarian crisis in a country that has still not recovered from the last war between Israel and Hizbullah.
Israeli troops have so far pushed a few kilometres north of the border, establishing a buffer zone, aimed at distancing Hizbullah fighters from Israeli border communities. A number of new military outposts have been set up, in addition to the five that Israel kept inside south Lebanon following the November 2024 ceasefire.
But Israel is refraining, for now at least, from a large-scale ground incursion. The aim is to exert massive pressure on the authorities in Beirut to act to implement the ceasefire agreement and disarm Hizbullah, beginning with the area north of the Litani river.
Over the weekend, the IDF used the renewed hostilities to conduct a search for the remains of Ron Arad, an air force navigator downed over Lebanon in 1986. According to reports from Lebanon, IDF special forces landed in four helicopters near the town of Nabi Chit in the southern Beqaa and searched a cemetery, but didn’t find what they were looking for. Heavy exchanges of fire erupted at the site and the IDF left after causing multiple Lebanese casualties. The raid happened even though Arad’s family oppose any such actions that endanger Israeli soldiers.
Israeli military officials say Hizbullah fell into a trap when they opened fire last Monday. “Our working assumption was that fighting with Iran could draw Hizbullah into the war,” IDF officials said. “IDF northern command fully prepared for this scenario. There was no surprise from our side. There were orderly plans and advance preparations.”
The ball is now in Lebanon’s court as far as Israel is concerned. A concerted effort by the central government in Beirut to rein in the Shia group could result in Israel halting its operation. If not, Israel is threatening to also target Lebanese infrastructure, causing more havoc to its northern neighbour.
