A month into war, Lebanon operation takes toll - analysis

Last week, Israel officially announced Operation Northern Arrows, which has been ongoing for more than a month. It began with more than 1,600 airstrikes on various targets, while the ground incursion into southern Lebanon started on October 1.

The air campaign has progressed from targeting Hezbollah’s command and control to striking rocket launchers and the terrorist organization’s financial institutions. But the ground campaign has been more focused on one goal.

The ground operations are aimed at clearing Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure from the border area and dozens of villages that Hezbollah festooned with tunnels and hidden arms caches. This is a difficult task, and it has become increasingly deadly over the past week.

In some ways, part of the campaign has similarities with the Second Lebanon War in 2006. That war also began with airstrikes and then involved a ground operation. The whole thing lasted a month, and the ground operation was often considered haphazard and ill-organized.

In retrospect, however, the war accomplished some goals and brought about 17 years of relative quiet. Under the guise of that quiet, Hezbollah increased its rocket arsenal from 13,000 to 150,000.

The challenge of southern Lebanon is that while Hezbollah suffered blows to its command and control operations, it appears to be clinging on and remains capable of continued deadly operations.

Daily occurrence

Hezbollah continues to launch rocket and drone barrages at Israel. On Sunday, several people were wounded in a rocket attack on Tamra and a drone attack near Acre. On Saturday, people were killed in a rocket attack on Majd el-Kurum.

This is a daily occurrence. Although the rocket and drone attacks have been consistent for more than a year and have driven 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the North, the goal of Northern Arrows is to create enough of a security guarantee to bring them back.

Over the past month, however, the rocket fire continues to average between 100 and 200 rockets a day, and the attacks wound and kill civilians.

The number of soldiers being killed in southern Lebanon also appears to be rising instead of falling over time. The strikes against Hezbollah, such as the killing of Radwan commanders in September and the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, should have weakened the group’s command and control.

Yet the war on Hamas has shown that these Iranian-backed proxy groups are capable of replacing commanders even as they suffer blows.Reports indicate that Hezbollah may have lost 1,000 fighters over the past month, in addition to the 500 killed in the year of combat from October 8, 2023, to September 15, 2024. Thousands of targets have been struck, yet Hezbollah fights on.

On Sunday, the names of five reservists from the 228th Reserve Brigade who were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon were released for publication by the IDF, raising the military death toll to 771. The 228th Reserve Brigade was deployed in the North in late September as the aerial operation was still under way. The IDF said it had entered Lebanon as part of the 91st Division on October 7.

Five more reservists had been killed on Friday, and several from the 8th Brigade were wounded, the IDF reported. On Thursday, four were killed, including members of the 2nd Carmeli Brigade.

Since the operation began, more than 30 soldiers have been killed in the fighting. Casualties in Gaza have also mounted in recent weeks as the IDF has been operating in Jabalya.

This two-front war, as well as the continued rocket fire in the North, illustrates that the successes, such the eliminations of Sinwar on October 16 and Nasrallah on September 27, do not necessarily reduce the losses on the frontline or lead to a rapid defeat of terrorist groups.

Iran and its proxies are closely monitoring these fronts. Iranian state media frequently plays up Hezbollah’s “successes,” such as rocket fire, and also reports about IDF losses. For Iran, this is very important and may grow in significance as Tehran seeks to recover from the Israeli airstrikes on Iran early Saturday.

For instance, Iranian state media on Sunday claimed: “Hezbollah targeted several Zionist regime’s positions and settlements, resulting in the killing and injury of several Israeli soldiers in the northern occupied territories.” Hezbollah had launched 75 rockets, a large barrage that shows it continues to have the capability to fire such a volume, the report said.

Hezbollah’s fighters don’t require many launchers to do so because trucks carrying up to 48 launch tubes have been found in Lebanon, so it would therefore only need a few vehicles or multiple launch tubes concealed in an area to successfully carry out a large barrage.

Hezbollah also appears to be increasingly targeting civilian areas. These are areas that have faced the alarm resulting from rocket launches in the past, but the barrage that struck Tamra and Majd el-Kurum seem to be relatively new locations for Hezbollah. The group has claimed in the past that it targets military areas, which are sometimes located near civilian areas. But it is lashing out while still keeping up the pretense of targeting military sites. Hezbollah struck a “military industries” site near Acre on Sunday, Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Hezbollah also claimed it is continuing to target IDF soldiers located near the border. It said it had attacked posts near Malkiya, Karmiel, and Kibbutz Manara on Sunday. It was not clear exactly which sites Hezbollah was referring to, but this is exactly the propaganda the group pushes when it claims it is targeting military positions.

The terrorist proxy group issues reports to various pro-Iran media outlets with the places it claims to have targeted. This shows that Hezbollah’s local units that carry out the rocket attacks are able to provide information back to a central command of sorts, which then puts the statements in the hands of Hezbollah media figures, who distribute it to pro-Iran media sites, such as Al Mayadeen, or via Hezbollah media outlets, such as Al Manar.

This illustrates that despite losses to its command and control structure, Hezbollah is able to coordinate its attacks and also keep track of its intended targets. The war in Lebanon, after 27 days of ground combat and more than a month of operations, appears to have a long way to go before Hezbollah is defeated.