Why there will be no mega-war in the North with Hezbollah, at least this year - comment

The conventional wisdom since late winter has been that war between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent and that there is no other way to return Israel’s 60,000 still evacuated northern residents to their homes.

After a series of high-level defense briefings in the late winter, I became convinced, and I still maintain, based on ongoing briefings (and have been right for around six months), that the mega war between Jerusalem and Beirut is not going to happen during this current conflict.

In two to five years, quite possibly or even likely – but not a few months ago, not now, and not in the coming months.

At a 30,000-foot level, the reason is simple: no matter how many reasons Israel and Hezbollah have to fight, neither side’s military leaders want to have a big war now.

Nothing about the fundamentals of that dynamic has changed since the winter.

From Israel’s perspective, the theoretical purpose of a war would be to force Hezbollah to remain north of the Litani River, to stop its rocket fire if it has not stopped as part of a ceasefire with Hamas, and more broadly, to restore future deterrence against any thought that the terror group might have of attacking Israel by land or by rockets.

However, sources revealed to me in the winter that we have already achieved most of our goals and that the costs of eliminating feelings of insecurity are far too high compared to the costs.

Israel's achievements 

In terms of achievements and providing northern residents a new and improved security situation, sources told me that Israel had already done months ago:

1) examined the possibility of keeping at least two full divisions of IDF soldiers on the northern border for many years/indefinitely, a 50% increase over the single division which was there pre-October 7;

2) succeeded in clearing out around 90% of Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces and close to 100% of the lookout towers which were in southern Lebanon, including continual airstrikes on later attempts to reconstitute certain lookout positions;

3) smashed Hamas’s military forces and urban areas in Gaza so definitively that it has reestablished aspects of its deterrence of Hezbollah already;

4) had Hezbollah more deterred than Hamas, given how harshly Israel punished it in 2006 compared to how restrained Israel was versus Hamas in the 2021 Gaza conflict and that the IDF during the current war has killed around 500 Hezbollah fighters, including over half of its southern Lebanon commanders, compared to fewer than 30 Israelis in the North

Put differently, the failure of deterrence with Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar does not mean deterrence never works and cannot work with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

THE MAIN ACHIEVEMENT that Israel has failed to attain so far – is getting Hezbollah to stop firing rockets, anti-tank missiles, and drones at the North – but it seems relatively clear that a ceasefire with Hamas would achieve that.

This is not based on conjecture but on the fact that during the November 23-30 ceasefire with Hamas, Hezbollah unilaterally stopped firing on Israel without Jerusalem even asking.

The first few weeks of the war may have benefitted Hezbollah because it invested little and lost little. But by December, the IDF started exacting a heavy price on the terror group by shifting from light proportional responses to disproportionate counterattacks to kill Hezbollah commanders and valuable aerial assets of the terror group – even more than 100 kilometers deep into Lebanon.

So Hezbollah is desperate to get to a ceasefire the moment that they can do so without losing face.

This means that with a ceasefire with Hamas, Israeli officials could tell and request northern residents to return to their homes, even without a foolproof deal with Hezbollah about its future intentions in southern Lebanon.

The IDF would need to be more active in foiling attempts by Hezbollah to return to southern Lebanon.

This would not prevent Hezbollah from returning. But it would drastically improve the security situation, which is mostly already accomplished, lacking only the ceasefire component.

All that without going into a mega war with Hezbollah.

If Israel did go into a mega war with Hezbollah, Israel would “win”, but the costs would be beyond what most of the public imagines.

Hezbollah has around 150,000 rockets and mortars, which could kill thousands or more, dwarfing October 7, and wreak severe destruction to critical infrastructure.

Some estimates are still using pre-October 7 or maybe even pre-2021 thinking by estimating that Hezbollah could manage “only” 1,500-3,000 rockets per day on Israel.

Sources already months ago made it clear that after seeing Hamas fire 3,000 rockets in only four hours, and given that Hezbollah is far more sophisticated than Hamas and has ten times as many rockets – it could potentially manage 8,000 rockets per day at the start of the war.

The 1,500-3,000 rockets per day could be maintained for a week or weeks.

Israel has shot down around 90% of the Hamas rockets, which could harm civilians out of Hamas’s 15,000 rocket arsenal.

Given many misfires and Israel’s ability to destroy many rockets before they were fired, this has meant that as few as several dozen yielded dangerous hits throughout the war.

Imagine Israel shooting down 90% of 8,000 or 3,000 rockets but 800 or 300 getting through in a single day to places like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ben-Gurion Airport.

Hezbollah has shown that it knows the locations of many IDF bases, successfully striking aspects of multiple bases in the north, including the Northern Command in Safed itself, while “only” firing on Israel around 5,000 times in over nine months.

Imagine the damage Hezbollah can do against IDF bases all over the country with its wide spectrum of long range rockets, including: Fajr-3 and -5 (43, 75 kilometers), Raad-2 and -3 (60–70 km.), Khaibar-1 (100 km.), Zelzal-1 (125–160 km.) and Zelzal-2 (210 km.), Iranian variants of Soviet artillery ballistic missiles, Fateh-110 (250–300 km., and Scud B, C, and D missiles.

Some of these missiles could put up to four million Israelis in their crosshairs and some could reach almost anywhere in the country.

Last month, the CEO of Noga – Israel Independent System Operator Ltd., Shaul Goldstein, said there is no guarantee that there would be electricity in Israel in the event of a future war with Hezbollah.

“After 72 hours without electricity in Israel, living here will be impossible. We are not in a good state and unprepared for a real war,” Goldstein said. He added that Hezbollah could easily take down Israel’s power grid.

“If Nasrallah wants to take down Israel’s power grid, he only needs to make a phone call to the person in charge of Beirut’s power system, which looks exactly like Israel’s. He doesn’t need a drone; he can call a second-year electrical engineering student and ask where the most critical points in Israel are – everything is on the internet. I won’t say it here, but anyone on the internet can find it,” Goldstein said.

Somewhere between several hundred to a few thousand Hezbollah missiles also have advanced precision capabilities, making it much harder for Israel to shoot them down.

All of this is without even getting into the idea that chances are a war with Hezbollah would deflect Israeli attention from Gaza and cause a further loss of support among Israeli allies for replacing Hamas.

If there is no ceasefire with Hamas, then the IDF must maintain significant forces in and around Gaza, which could not be used against Hezbollah.

If there is a ceasefire, whatever might come out of it, Hamas is not going to magically disappear as a political entity, even if Israel manages to replace it. There are going to be years when Israel will need the assistance of the US and other allies to deal with that situation.

What a war could look like

IN A BEST CASE scenario, a massive Israeli preemptive strike might limit Israeli deaths to hundreds in a Hezbollah missile reprisal.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, the Israeli Air Force flew around 19,000 sorties, striking around 7,000 targets in 34 days. The IDF’s daily onslaught of around 100 of its 500 aircraft and  48 of its 160 helicopters managed to eliminate most of Hezbollah’s advanced missiles in the first 30 minutes of the war. It kept the terror group from firing around 4,000 rockets, which killed around 160 people.

At the time, the IDF had 11 squadrons of different kinds of F-16s, four squadrons of F-15s, and a variety of other aircraft.

Currently, the IDF’s air power has been greatly augmented by 50 F-35 stealth fighters, along with a continued mix of F-15s, F-16s, Apache helicopters, Blackhawks, Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallions, C-130s, G550 Gulfstreams, and other aircraft.

In comparison to 2006, the IDF, in the first 30-plus days of the war with Hamas, had already struck 15,000 targets, more than double what it achieved against Hezbollah 18 years ago.

With limited air, as much remained in the North throughout the war, ready to strike.

The IDF’s artificial intelligence target bank capabilities allow it to add new targets in real time faster than it destroys old targets on the list, which was nowhere near possible in 2006.

Some Israeli defense officials believe that an enormous preemptive airstrike “sending Lebanon into the stone age,” along with an invasion of southern Lebanon pushing any remaining rocket crews out of the area, could significantly reduce the potential of Hezbollah harm to Israel.

The truth is that no one knows what would happen in such a situation because so many variables are involved.

But many defense officials, behind the scenes, would rather postpone any war with Hezbollah until Israel does a much better job rocket-proofing the civilian residential and infrastructure home front.

They would also rather await progress with certain aerial attack and defense capabilities, which will take more time to develop or receive from the US.

Will the 60,000 northern residents go back short of a Hezbollah promise to stay north of the Litani or a mega war?

That is a separate question concerning politics and economic support, no less than with security. There probably will be a point at which Israelis will lose patience with living under the threat of a Hezbollah invasion and its 150,000 rockets and will want to strike the Lebanese terror group in a much bigger way than it has during this war.

That desire could still lead to a miscalculation and an unintended war shortly.

But given the full scope of the costs and benefits, including how much Israel has already achieved, a war in the coming months is unlikely, no matter what the public pronouncements continue to be.