Can under-fire Hezbollah hold back Israeli commandos?

Analysts tell The National that Israeli intelligence and firepower have significantly increased but their opposition remain dangerous insurgents

Israeli troops on armoured vehicles near the border with Lebanon. AP

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Outgunned, its leadership decimated and arms dumps demolished, Hezbollah is facing a battle for existence in its war against Israel in Lebanon.

On the back foot it most certainly is, and the coming weeks will significantly test its resilience in the face of a dominant Israeli military.

It is also apparent that Israel has turned the 30 kilometres south of the Litani river in southern Lebanon into a designated war zone, although questions have been raised whether suitable warnings have been given to civilians.

But the Israelis will know above all else that they are up against arguably the most formidable Arab military force in the region and a former national security adviser has told The National they could face “heavy casualties”.

That was demonstrated, despite the decapitation of its leadership through the pager attacks and air strikes, when Hezbollah was still able to conduct several attacks on Wednesday, in which eight Israeli soldiers, including commandos, were killed.

Can Hezbollah fight back?

What this reveals is that the organisation’s troops, particularly its Radwan special forces honed in combat from the Syrian war, retain what western militaries refer to as “mission command”, the ability of junior ranks to use their initiative on operations.

Hezbollah have an estimated 20,000 trained fighters, including about 2,300 Radwan, and a further 20,000 reservists who are all likely mobilised.

Friends of Captain Eitan Oster gather at his funeral. He was the first Israeli soldier to be killed in Lebanon since Israel launched its ground invasion. Getty

Despite the heavy Israeli bombardment, they will retain access to weaponry that, as demonstrated on Wednesday, can inflict significant damage.

Prof Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy national security adviser, said that while Hezbollah had lost 50 per cent of its arsenal and was in a state of “shock and disarray”, its forces were trained to operate independently of central command, as witnessed by some units fighting in the south.

“This is guerrilla warfare and you can never completely destroy the enemy no matter how effective you are,” he said. Prof Freilich predicted that Israeli forces “will still have significant casualties in the best of circumstances, and they could be heavy”.

This ranges from Kornet anti-tank weapons, with a range of more than 10 kilometres, short-range rockets, RPGs and mines, in particular improvised explosive devices that were used in the recent attacks.

They have also recently demonstrated an attack drone capability – something that has benefited the outnumbered Ukrainian army significantly – that may well be deployed to great effect.

“The main question is, how well prepared is Hezbollah for this, considering they have suffered enormous defeats in the last few weeks,” said Amos Harel, Israel’s leading media military expert.

“How many Hezbollah fighters are actually deployed there, whether the chain of command works, whether the decision makers decide to continue fighting a heroic effort to try to prevent Israel from storming in?”

The remaining leadership will also be carefully considering how they deploy their depleted forces without suffering an even more significant failure, added the writer for Haaretz newspaper.

Serious fighters

But what is clear is that the Israelis will face a more sophisticated resistance than Hamas’ in Gaza, although they still managed some modest successes.

“Hezbollah is better trained, better equipped and has field commanders with more experience, because they fought in a horrific civil war in Syria for years,” said Mr Harel. “These are serious fighters who will try their best under the circumstances, although the organisation is not as capable as it appeared to be a few weeks ago.”

Israel’s commanders know that they have certainly crossed a Rubicon both politically and militarily by invading Lebanon.

They learnt from their 2006 bloody experience that Iran-backed Hezbollah possess formidable firepower, which is possibly why, despite pictures of tanks on the border, few have entered Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters carry the coffins of Mohammad Surur, head of one of Hezbollah's air force units, who was killed in September. EPA

While the Merkava IV’s and Namer armoured personnel carriers have far better defensive protection than two decades ago, enough hits from anti-tank rounds will disable them.

Israel has instead opted to use its elite infantry, mainly drawn from the 98th Division, consisting of commandos, paratroopers and other special forces.

They appear to be conducting painstaking ground operations going into villages to clear them of tunnels, arms caches and fighters.

While operational security has been strictly imposed, The National understands that the troops are also scouring the wooded hillsides where tunnels have been built back to villages and have openings that are less than 300 metres from the Israeli border.

These will be cleared and destroyed as part of the mission to push Hezbollah back over the Litani, to keep them out of rocket range and allow the 60,000 displaced civilians to return to their homes in northern Israel.

These forces will be backed by a formidable array of air power from Apache attack helicopters to F-35 fighters overhead and Hezbollah has little air defence to stop them.

Enough warning?

Israel’s intelligence operation has clearly demonstrated that it can penetrate the highest levels of Hezbollah and drone and other intelligence assets will continue hoovering up information.

But questions have been raised over whether its information operation warning Lebanese civilians of impending strikes have worked, with more than 1,000 killed in the past few weeks.

An Israeli Air Force F-35 multirole jet. EPA

An Israeli security source told The National that they had hacked into radio networks and stations to broadcast their messages for people to leave the area. Leaflets have also been dropped warning of military action.

It was also reported that an Arabic-language Israeli spokesperson had ordered civilians to immediately evacuate 24 towns in southern Lebanon and move north of the Awali River, which is 35km distance from the Litani.

“Civilians staying in the war zone are taking huge risks,” said the source. “But if they cross the Litani or Awali they’re relatively safe.”

No easy fight

Ultimately, it will be down to the infantry to clear through villages and strongholds whose terrain their opposition will know intimately without becoming bogged down in a protracted fight with high casualties.

“The IDF has been building intelligence on these groups, for years and years,” said open source intelligence analyst Tal Hagin.

“But this will not be easy to fight with tanks as it's a lot harder for armour to get around unlike Gaza that's flat, so it will be mainly ground forces.”

The security source added that the objective of the operation was not to “occupy and hold territory” but to “degrade and destroy Hezbollah's terrorist infrastructure”.

“But Hezbollah at their roots are an insurgent group who are operating in their own backyard and one of the most capable military forces in the Middle East,” he added. “So we need to keep that in mind.”