[News] Following Hezbollah’s Retaliation: Who Won this Bout?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

palestinechronicle.com
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/following-hezbollahs-retaliation-who-won-this-bout-analysis/>
Following Hezbollah’s Retaliation: Who Won this Bout? - ANALYSISAugust 26,
2024
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Tensions run high between Israel and the Lebanese Resistance Movement
Hezbollah. (Image: Palestine Chronicle)

*By Palestine Chronicle Editors
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-editors>*

Has Hezbollah, in its latest attack on Israel, managed to restore
deterrence, thus denying Israel any strategic achievement following the
assassination of top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr on July 30?

In his speech, hours following the Hezbollah retaliation against Israel on
Sunday, the movement’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/day-of-arbaeen-nasrallah-reveals-hezbollahs-main-targets-denies-israels-allegations/>
that the group has “targeted sites and barracks to exhaust the Iron Dome
and its interceptive missiles, allowing drones to reach their targets.”

“We identified a set of targets near Tel Aviv that meet our specifications,
including the Glilot base, which is a central base for Israeli intelligence
and houses Unit 8200,” Nasrallah added.

“Our data confirms that a significant number of drones reached these
targets, but the enemy is concealing the facts. However, the coming days
and nights will reveal the truth of what happened there”.

On that same night, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al-Qassam
Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, congratulated
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/all-fronts-will-remain-ablaze-resistance-roundup-day-324/>
Hezbollah for its “initial response operation” and emphasized that
Hezbollah’s operation demonstrates a significant shift in the strategic
landscape for Israel since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood.

“The enemy has no safety from retribution, and there are no limits to the
possibility of striking it anywhere and from any front,” Abu Obeida said.

Despite all of this, some voices, including many anti-Hezbollah Arab
analysts, doubted the effectiveness of Hezbollah’s retaliation.

As far as the Israeli government is concerned, the Hezbollah attack, using
340 rockets and multiple drones, was useless.

“I can confirm that there were no hits at the Glilot base,” a spokesperson
for the Israeli military said.

Judging by the experience of the last ten months, the Israeli army and its
spokespersons have little credibility, as they constantly undermine the
damage, in both military equipment and personnel, inflicted by the
Resistance, despite the fact that the latter documents most of its attacks
using videos and other means.

Indeed, while Palestinian Resistance in Gaza documents many of its
operations, Hezbollah uses highly precise monitoring equipment to
authenticate its accounts regarding its ongoing resistance in south Lebanon
and at Israel’s northern borders.

All of this in mind, an important question must be asked: has Hezbollah, in
its latest attack on Israel, managed to restore deterrence, thus denying
Israel any strategic achievement following the assassination of top
Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr on July 30?
*Revisiting ‘Deterrence’*

On October 6, 2023, the rules of engagement that governed the relation
between Israel and the Lebanese resistance were predicated on Israel’s
military presence across all border regions, and active Israeli military
operations in the occupied areas of south Lebanon as well.

This equation also allowed Israel to operate unhindered above the Lebanese
skies, often breaking the sound barrier over Lebanon while conducting
aerial operations and bombings over Syria.

Those ‘rules’ were themselves the outcome of the 2006 Israeli war on
Lebanon, where Israel failed to occupy parts of the south of the country
with the hope of pushing Lebanese resistance north of the Litani River.

It can be argued that the Lebanese, Palestinians, and their allies are
justified in describing the outcome of that war as an outright defeat for
Israel. That defeat, however, still did not change the relationship between
the two sides in a way that would allow Lebanon to retrieve its occupied
territories or discourage Israel from habitually violating Lebanese
sovereignty.

Ten months into the war, the nature of the relationship seems to have been
fundamentally altered. Both sides have pushed toward the creation of new
rules of engagement, thus raising the serious possibility of an all-out war.

This leads to another question: who has the upper hand in these new rules
of engagement?
*Transparency and Denial*

Israel is known for either denying or undermining its military losses on
both the Gaza and the Lebanese fronts.

Hezbollah, however, has been transparent about its own losses whether among
civilians or military personnel.

When Israel assassinated Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in south Beirut,
it also killed a number of civilians.

Though Hezbollah could have used the killing of civilians to justify future
retaliatory attacks against Israeli military bases, it, within hours,
declared that indeed, its top commander had been assassinated.

The group could have hidden the news of the murder of its commander, simply
because very few, whether in Lebanon or outside, knew of the man’s
identity.

Indeed, Shukr’s identity was so well protected to the extent that, for days
after his assassination, news networks in the Middle East continued to
share the wrong photo of the man. Only when Hezbollah published Shukr’s
actual photo, did we become familiar with the man’s actual appearance.

The reason why Hezbollah declared the death of its top commander was
indicative of the group’s immediate desire to avenge him, thus to, once
more, establish new rules of deterrence and change the old rules of the
game altogether.

In many ways, this reflects the Lebanese resistance’s growing confidence in
its ability to match the Israeli escalation with even greater escalation,
denying Tel Aviv any kind of political leverage or victory in Lebanon – as
the Gaza resistance has denied Israel victory in the Strip as well.

For nearly a month, Hezbollah repeated that the response would be stronger
than anything that Israel had expected, raising panic in Israel, a state of
emergency throughout the military, and long lines of customers hoping to
store needed food supplies as they remained inside or close to their bomb
shelters.

That collective psychological impact was only part of the retaliation. It
was followed by a massive volley of rockets and drones that reached many
parts of Israel, including the Meron Base, the Negev Ziv Artillery
Position, the Zaoura Artillery Position, the Ramot Naftali Barracks, among
others.

The Hezbollah attack also included a “sensitive target”, which turned out
to be the Glilot military base, where the army’s 8200 intelligence unit is
headquartered.

Again, Israel denied that any serious damage had happened to this base or
any other.

Instead, Israel said that it had struck hundreds of Lebanese targets
preemptively, destroying thousands of rockets and preventing the Hezbollah
attack from being much worse.

What can we learn from the Israeli claims?
*Avoiding Escalation*

While Hezbollah used the assassination of Shukr as a way to showcase its
power and outreach, Israel constantly undermined the importance of
Hezbollah’s responses to avoid further escalation.

This implies that what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping
for is an escalation that would lead to a regional war, which would involve
the US, not a limited war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel knows that it is unable to fight a war against Hezbollah alone, and,
unlike the outcome of the 2006 war, the outcome of a future war with
Lebanon would be much more destructive for Israel.

As for the ‘preemptive strike’, one does not need to consult with
Nasrallah’s statement that “Many valleys that the enemy considers to
contain ballistic missile platforms and installations (…) were empty or
already evacuated areas.”

We know for a fact that Israel cannot possibly know the location of
Hezbollah’s rocket arsenals, simply because the group’s military
capabilities are in constant movement.

Additionally, we also know, per Israel’s own claims, that the Israeli army
has been informed – most likely by the US – that Hezbollah is preparing a
response, only a short time before the response had in fact begun.

How is it possible that Israel, within a matter of minutes, managed to
acquire extensive details of Hezbollah’s moving positions, thus striking
them down with great accuracy, as the Israelis claim? Obviously, the
Israeli strikes were carried out for propaganda purposes, to convey a sense
of confidence in its beleaguered military, nothing more.

Thus, by exaggerating the effectiveness of its supposed ‘preemptive
strike’, while completely denying any damage inflicted by Hezbollah, Israel
has conveyed the exact opposite: weakness, not strength.

Weakness because the Israeli narrative seems to have been perfectly
tailored to avoid any further escalation, thus once more, giving Hezbollah
the last word and the upper hand.

While the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu is now busy celebrating
the re-establishment of the so-called deterrence on the northern front, the
Israeli military, many in the media and political analysts as well, know
that the opposite is true.

It is Israel that has lost its deterrence in Lebanon, and if things
continue to move from bad to worse for the Israeli army, this time may be
forever.

*(The Palestine Chronicle)*
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