Researcher: Hezbollah and Israel were preparing for this war since 2006

Khalil Elhalo, a researcher for political and strategic affairs, stated in an interview with the Saudi "Al-Hadath" network last week that a third Hezbollah-Israel war would be different, as "Israel this time round has a very developed weapons system, unlike in 2006."

"In 2006, there were no anti-missile defense systems in Israel," he said. "Today, they have the Iron Dome system, David's Sling and the Arrow 3 system, and Israel also has four artificial intelligence systems."

"These AI systems can categorize tens of thousands of Hamas targets in Gaza and thousands more in Lebanon. Physically speaking, these targets can be buildings, empty houses or wooded areas, etc. All of these, as far as Israel is concerned, are targets of Hezbollah, whether they are combat centers, logistics centers or underground headquarters."

"Most of Hezbollah's facilities in Lebanon are invisible and are underground."

Elhalo also said that "Since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Israel has re-evaluated the performance of its army and conducted training so that it does not fall into the same mistakes it made in 2006."

"As for Hezbollah, it's worth noting that both sides recognized or agreed on Resolution 1701, but it was not implemented even for a second by either party, with the exception of the temporary cessation of hostilities. Since 2006, Hezbollah has mainly recruited young men from the southern region to its ranks, and we know this because all the dead Hezbollah operatives are residents of the South.

Therefore the organization does not need to mobilize fighters from the North to the South, and has developed a network of fighters in 65 villages in the South."

"Also, we can tell they have been preparing by their ammunition and tunnels. We have not seen a single Israeli plane attack a truck transporting ammunition or operatives to southern Lebanon. So, Hezbollah has been preparing for this campaign for a long time, probably because the 2006 war was not definitive and neither side had ultimate victory.

2006 war

"Israelis say they won it because they reached the Litani in time, while Hezbollah says it had a divine victory because it forced Israel to retreat. In fact, the war between the two sides never ended and both sides have been preparing for this since 2006."

"From 2006 until 2019 the southern Lebanese front was relatively calm, but since 2019 we began to notice violations by Hezbollah firing at Israel and by Israel firing at uninhabited areas with a small number of casualties on both sides. Of course violations of Israel's violates Lebanese airspace on the daily."

"Hezbollah initiated this escalation and became focused on "uniting the fronts", engaging with the loyal proxies in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Hamas, and similar entities to the extent that even before October 7, missiles were fired from Lebanon from areas controlled by Hezbollah. However, this all occurred before the war, so to some extent this war broke out unexpectedly, and Hezbollah said they did not anticipate it."