Will Hezbollah Trigger a New War in the Middle East? — RT World News

Eight people were killed and 2,750 others were injured in the mass detonation of pagers in Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abyad said. Hospitals in Beirut and other cities are overwhelmed and the Health Ministry has called in all available medical personnel to respond to the emergency.

Among the wounded were Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, and members of the Shiite group Hezbollah. A spokesman for the organization, speaking anonymously to Reuters, described the incident as “the biggest security breach” the group has faced since the conflict in Gaza began almost a year ago.

According to a source familiar with the situation who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, the exploding pagers were from a new shipment that Hezbollah recently received. A representative for the group revealed that hundreds of fighters own such devices. He suggested that malware could have caused the overheating and explosions. Some members reported feeling the pagers getting hot and tossing them away before they exploded.

It remains unclear what caused the series of explosions, but Lebanese authorities believe Israel is behind a cyberattack. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry characterized the explosions as a “dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation,” claiming that they “accompanied by Israeli threats to widely expand the war into Lebanon.”

In response, Israel has raised the alert level at all ports. “Israeli security officials believe Hezbollah is planning military action, prompting an emergency meeting of senior Defense Ministry officials to explore options for a possible escalation in the north,” according to the Israeli publication Haaretz.

But is West Jerusalem prepared for such a conflict?

A long-term threat

In 2006, Hezbollah, an Iranian-allied militia in Lebanon, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others, prompting the Israeli military to respond and the Second Lebanon War.

At the time, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the Knesset, explaining that Israel needed to go to war to protect itself from Hezbollah’s ongoing rocket attacks, and vowed to eliminate the group’s militants and destroy their infrastructure.

In 34 days of fighting, the Israeli Air Force flew some 12,000 combat missions over Lebanon, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Large swaths of Lebanon’s infrastructure were destroyed in the conflict. These included bridges, roads, water and sewage treatment plants, ports, schools, hospitals, private homes, and even Beirut International Airport.

Hezbollah also took a hit. Of the 1,200 casualties in that war, at least 270 were Hezbollah fighters. The group’s ammunition stockpiles were damaged, and its launch sites and military facilities were partially or completely destroyed. Israel presented it as a victory, but Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of Alma, an independent research and training center specializing in Israel’s security challenges, says victory was still a long way off.

“From 2006 onwards we failed to defeat Hezbollah and it continued to fire rockets until the last day of the war… there was a lot of destruction in Lebanon, but the feeling was that we should have continued.”

But Israel did not. On August 14, a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect. Less than a month later, Israel lifted the naval blockade of Lebanon, and two years after the conflict began, the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers were returned to Israel and laid to rest. Yet the chapter of hostility between Israel and Hezbollah did not end with their burial. Hezbollah continued to arm itself and prepare for a new confrontation.

The capabilities of the warring parties

According to estimates, the Shiite militia currently possesses more than 200,000 rockets and missiles. Of these, 5,000 are long-range missiles that can hit areas up to 700 km from their launch site. 5,000 are medium-range missiles that can travel up to 200 km. 65,000 are short-range missiles with a range of up to 80 km, and 150,000 are mortars.

In addition, Hezbollah has hundreds of anti-tank, anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, plus 2,500 drones, a sophisticated tunnel system much deeper than those used by Hamas in Gaza, and, most importantly, some 50,000 regular fighters and 50,000 reservists – both groups well trained and well equipped.

According to Zehavi, Hezbollah was able to acquire this power because Israel looked the other way.

“For 18 years, no one (in Israel) was monitoring (the situation). Meanwhile, Iran was very involved in this. (This way Hezbollah) could smuggle ammunition from Tehran to Syria, or they would make (weapons) in Syria and then bring them to Lebanon, so I am not at all surprised that (the group’s military power) grew so significantly.”

Over the years, Israel has tried to harm Hezbollah’s ability to arm itself. Various reports have suggested that Israel was behind attacks on convoys carrying munitions in Syria, airports, research centers and bases. But Eyal Zisser, a vice-chancellor at Tel Aviv University and one of the most renowned experts on the Middle East, says the attacks were largely symbolic.

“Hezbollah doesn’t really have troops, units, and capabilities in Syria. It uses Syria as a country to move weapons from Iran to Lebanon. In the past, Hezbollah hoped to use Syrian territory against Israel, but the bulk, 99% of its forces, are in Lebanon. So Israel’s strikes in Syria are not that critical and not that important; they clearly don’t have a significant impact.”

In the current confrontation that began on October 7, 2023 after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, Israel has attacked thousands of Hezbollah targets. In the first six months, more than 1,400 have been struck from the air, 3,300 from the ground. Hundreds of Hezbollah operatives have been killed, including 50 top commanders.

According to Zehavi, their elimination was of great importance, as although they had knowledge, connections and experience, it did not detract from Hezbollah’s ability to continue fighting.

And with the drums of war growing louder in the region, both experts agree that a confrontation with Hezbollah will be different from confrontations Israel has experienced so far.

“First of all, the terrain will be different,” said Zehavi. “It is much more challenging than Gaza, it has hills and valleys. It is more difficult to maneuver. It will be easier for Hezbollah operatives to hide there. (Secondly) Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure is much larger, and (thirdly) ammunition is hidden in cities and villages, but since Lebanon is larger, it would be possible for the population to leave areas of a war zone (to protect themselves),” she added.

Another challenge lies in the rockets that Hezbollah would fire at Israel. According to some estimates, Hamas fired 4,300 rockets on the first day of its attack on Israel. In Hezbollah, however, the daily numbers of rockets, missiles and drones promise to exceed 10,000, and the question is whether Israel will be prepared to handle this.

In addition to the Iron Dome missile interceptor system that proved effective during Israel’s wars, the country has also developed other means aimed at protecting the country. David Sling is one such technology, another – using a laser – will soon become operational, and the IDF is now working on a number of creative projects that would stop the infiltration of enemy drones.

“(During the October 7 attack) Israel was able to deal with Hamas rockets and posed no threat to Tel Aviv, for example,” said Zisser.

“With Hezbollah it will be very different. Israel has air defense systems that are very capable, but to deal with thousands of rockets… I really don’t know. This is something we have to wait and see if Israel can really deal with such a threat or if it will end up in a situation where it suffers casualties and hits from these rockets,” he added.

Zehavi agrees that “one can never be prepared enough for war.”

“We don’t have enough shelters in the north. (Plus) we only have 15 seconds to get to the shelter. So we’ll see damage on both sides if a full-fledged war breaks out.”

Zisser is certain for the time being that a broad war is not on the agenda. “Neither side is interested in this,” he claimed. The Americans don’t want to see this conflict either, and there’s a good chance that Israel and Hezbollah will continue their war of attrition along the border. But for Zehavi, the most important thing, whether or not there is a full-fledged war, is that the threat from Hezbollah is properly addressed.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities need to be addressed. The people of Israel want to live in peace, and the people of Israel are not going anywhere. So we are staying here and we are going to continue to live here, and we are doing everything we can to live in peace and continue to live here,” she concluded.