When Israeli forces invaded Lebanon in 2006, they struggled from the start.<\/p>\n
For weeks, troops were bogged down in clashes with Hezbollah fighters, less than a mile into Lebanese territory. Tanks hit explosives or were set ablaze by shoulder-fired missiles: 121 soldiers died.<\/p>\n
The 34-day conflict, which started July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid and captured two soldiers, ended with both sides claiming victory, despite the stinging losses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israeli army was unprepared for a comprehensive ground operation,\u201d former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was in office at the time, said in an interview with The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
In a searing assessment of Israel\u2019s military campaign, the government-appointed Winograd Commission <\/a>said the decision to go to war was hasty and the operation poorly planned. There were gaps in intelligence, the commission said, and a \u201cserious, missed opportunity\u201d to deal Hezbollah a much heavier blow.<\/p>\n Now, as Israel prepares for another potential ground invasion, its military and security establishment appear to have absorbed the lessons of the past. Over the past 10 days, Israel has targeted and crippled Hezbollah\u2019s logistics and communications infrastructure, taken out key weapons stores and eliminated its senior commanders, including the movement\u2019s longtime leader, Hasan Nasrallah.<\/p>\n The brazen attacks have stunned Hezbollah, humiliating a group whose raison d\u2019\u00eatre is to fight Israel. But they are also evidence of Israel\u2019s years of preparation, including intelligence collection, military exercises, fine-tuned battle plans and a multilayered air defense system.<\/p>\n Hezbollah had assembled its own arsenal of an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles over the years, but it is unclear now how effectively the group can use them, with its leadership wiped out and thousands of operatives either killed or injured.<\/p>\n Despite the blows, however, Israel is still haunted by its past missteps in Lebanon. Olmert said that a ground offensive in the current conflict wasn\u2019t necessary, with Hezbollah so crippled that it would probably capitulate and agree to a cease-fire deal that\u2019s favorable to Israel.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/b>It will be tough, it will be difficult, and it will be bloody for all sides,\u201d Olmert said of any ground operation. The Post interviewed Olmert before Nasrallah was killed. \u201cThey have more weapons, they have more missiles. We have the capacity and the weapons that can match it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Adding to the risk, however, is the regionwide coordination between Iran-backed militias in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen, an alliance that has strengthened since 2006.<\/p>\n The conflict could \u201crapidly expand\u201d into an all-out regional war with more precise and even heavier missiles fired at Israeli cities, Olmert said. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry on striking Hezbollah with \u201cfull force,\u201d as part of Israel\u2019s mission to quiet the rockets Hezbollah has already fired in solidarity with Hamas<\/a> in the Gaza Strip<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are witnessing what appears to be a historical turning point. We are winning. We are determinant to strike our enemies,\u201d Netanyahu said Saturday in an address to the nation.<\/p>\n He was defiant despite a desperate push by the United States and other allies for a 21-day cease-fire. Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, Lebanon\u2019s Ministry of Public Health said on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, including in Beirut, where residents fleeing airstrikes are sleeping on the streets.<\/p>\n If Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon, it would be the fourth Israeli invasion there over the past 50 years. Each time, Israel has sought to push hostile militants away from its border.<\/p>\n The first, in 1978, was meant to drive back Palestinian fighters and seize a narrow strip of land along the frontier. At that time, Lebanon had become refuge for some 100,000 Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes in Israel\u2019s war of independence in 1948, a period the refugees refer to as the \u201cNakba,\u201d or catastrophe. Later, the Palestine Liberation Organization used southern Lebanon as a base of operations.<\/p>\n But when Israel embarked on a full-scale invasion in 1982, troops didn\u2019t leave for nearly two decades. The occupation helped birth Hezbollah, which was founded with the stated goal of ejecting Israeli forces. The military was eventually forced out in 2000, with Hezbollah firing a ferocious barrage<\/a> of mortars and missiles as the soldiers withdrew.<\/p>\n \u201cAll Israelis hate the idea of a ground operation in Lebanon,\u201d said Sarit Zehavi, the founder of the Alma Research and Education Center, a foundation focused on the security threat on Israel\u2019s northern border. \u201cNot only because 2006, because of all these years we spent in Lebanon, from \u201982,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if there\u2019s no other choice, we have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Over years since 2006, Israel has adapted its military doctrine in a way that it hopes will bring more clear shifts to the status quo. There have been questions over the practice known as \u201cmowing the grass,\u201d a strategy of attrition that involves repeated conflicts with enemy forces to restore temporary deterrence. In 2020, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, then Israel\u2019s chief of staff, turned instead to a strategy he called \u201cdecisive victory.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, the current chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, told troops operating in the north that they should prepare for a ground maneuver in southern Lebanon, where they would \u201cdecisively destroy<\/a>\u201d the enemy there.<\/p>\n The war in 2006 was \u201ca totally different ballgame\u201d from the well-rehearsed battle plans being rolled out today, said Oded Eilam, a former senior officer in Israel\u2019s Mossad intelligence agency. He said he was not authorized to disclose his exact role in the 2006 conflict.<\/p>\n The first Israeli tank crossed the border just hours after Hezbollah kidnapped two soldiers and killed three others on the patrol. It ran into a land mine, which killed another four soldiers.<\/p>\n In the opening air blitz, Eilam said, Israeli jets managed to bomb 75 long-range missile launchers in an operation that lasted just 34 minutes. Those launchers made up around two-thirds of Hezbollah\u2019s long-range missiles capabilities, Eilam said.<\/p>\n But the prepared list of strategic targets, crucial to keeping up the pressure, was expended within days. \u201cWe suffered from a lack of intelligence,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means you are running blind.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until Israel staged a punishing attack on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, that the war started to turn around. \u201cThat changed the course of the engagement,\u201d said Eilam. \u201cWe started to actually wipe out buildings \u2014 20 to 30 floors. It was a shock wave to Hezbollah.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, Israel has dramatically improved its intelligence, building up a bank of thousands of targets to hit in any war, he said. By 2011, Israeli intelligence had already mapped out 1,000 targets in the south<\/a>, The Post reported at the time.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Netanyahu-I-will-bomb-Damascus.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA history of invasions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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