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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Following Hezbollah’s Retaliation: Who Won this Bout? - ANALYSIS</h1>August 26, 2024</div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Hezbollah_Israel_PC.png" alt="" title="Hezbollah_Israel_PC" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="396" height="266" style="margin-right: 25px;">
Tensions run high between Israel and the Lebanese Resistance Movement Hezbollah. (Image: Palestine Chronicle)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-editors" title="Display all articles for Palestine Chronicle Editors">Palestine Chronicle Editors</a></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>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?</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>In his speech, hours following the Hezbollah retaliation against Israel on Sunday, the movement’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, </span><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/day-of-arbaeen-nasrallah-reveals-hezbollahs-main-targets-denies-israels-allegations/"><span>said</span></a><span>
that the group has “targeted sites and barracks to exhaust the Iron
Dome and its interceptive missiles, allowing drones to reach their
targets.”</span></p>
<p><span>“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.</span></p>
<p><span>“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”.</span></p>
<p><span>On that same night, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, </span><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/all-fronts-will-remain-ablaze-resistance-roundup-day-324/"><span>congratulated</span></a><span>
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. </span></p>
<p><span>“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.</span></p>
<p><span>Despite all of this, some voices, including many anti-Hezbollah
Arab analysts, doubted the effectiveness of Hezbollah’s retaliation. </span></p>
<p><span>As far as the Israeli government is concerned, the Hezbollah attack, using 340 rockets and multiple drones, was useless.</span></p>
<p><span>“I can confirm that there were no hits at the Glilot base,” a spokesperson for the Israeli military said.</span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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?</span></p>
<h4><strong>Revisiting ‘Deterrence’</strong></h4>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>This leads to another question: who has the upper hand in these new rules of engagement? </span></p>
<h4><strong>Transparency and Denial</strong></h4>
<p><span>Israel is known for either denying or undermining its military losses on both the Gaza and the Lebanese fronts. </span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah, however, has been transparent about its own losses whether among civilians or military personnel. </span></p>
<p><span>When Israel assassinated Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in south Beirut, it also killed a number of civilians. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>Again, Israel denied that any serious damage had happened to this base or any other. </span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>What can we learn from the Israeli claims?</span></p>
<h4><strong>Avoiding Escalation</strong></h4>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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.”</span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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. </span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><span>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.</span></p>
<p><em>(The Palestine Chronicle)</em></p>
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