Ali
Rizk
Hezbollah
has once again proven to be a handful for Israel, notwithstanding the heavy
blows that were dealt to the resistance movement in the latest round of
hostilities. A ceasefire deal that has
come into effect after over two months of full-scale conflict on the
Lebanese–Israeli front falls far short of what Israel had hoped to achieve in
the earlier stages of this conflict when the momentum seemed to be on its side.
A map indicating where the Israeli forces are currently deployed
in south Lebanon one day after the ceasefire took effect.
For
its part, the Lebanese movement has managed to survive what was, without a
doubt, the heaviest and most sophisticated onslaught ever launched in the
history of warfare.
While
the ceasefire deal is composed of 13 provisions, it centers around UN Security
Council (UNSC) Resolution 1701, which brought an end to the 2006 Israel war on
Lebanon. This, in and of itself, points to a failure for Israel when viewed
against its list of initial demands.
Israeli
demands and UN involvement
One
of those early demands was made during a UN session last month, when Tel Aviv
called for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1559, which effectively calls
for the disarmament of Hezbollah (the actual wording of the resolution calls
for the disarmament of ‘militias’ – an implicit reference to Hezbollah).
The
enforcement mechanism of 1701 based on the new agreement, however, appears to
differ somewhat from the language put in place 18 years ago. One of the
provisions of the new deal is the establishment of an international committee
to oversee its enforcement and guarantee that both sides live up to their
commitments as stated in the provisions.
This
effectively means more enhanced oversight of the commitment of both parties to
1701, given that the task of monitoring the implementation of this resolution
since 2006 had fallen to the UN peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon (UNIFIL)
without the involvement of other foreign parties.
In
line with the recent agreement, an international committee will be led by the
US, with France also playing a key role. Importantly, however, its mandate does
not include actual enforcement authority – that role will remain reserved
mainly for the Lebanese army. US President Joe Biden sought to emphasize this
point in remarks he made from the White House, in which he declared the
ceasefire deal had been reached.
“There
will be no US combat troops in the area, but there will be military support for
the Lebanese Armed Forces, as we've done in the past,” said Biden, adding that
“in this case, it'll be typically done with the Lebanese army and in
conjunction with the French military as well.”
According
to retired Lebanese army general Mounir Shehadeh, the presence of a committee
led by the US will translate into stricter enforcement measures in terms of
ending any armed presence for Hezbollah south of the Litani River, which is one
of the original provisions of 1701. As Shehadeh tells The Cradle:
“I don’t think the
Lebanese army through its intelligence directorate and based on its own
intelligence will proceed out of its own initiative to search for the possible
whereabouts of weapons caches belonging to the resistance. But the Lebanese
army and UNIFIL will be forced by this committee led by America to conduct
searches of different locations.”
Tel
Aviv’s unrealized goals
This,
however, remains a far cry from Israel’s long-standing objective of having
foreign troops deployed in Lebanon with a mandate that allows them to use force
to end Hezbollah’s armed presence in the south.
For
years, Israel has unsuccessfully sought to empower UNIFIL troops with a more
robust enforcement role under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which would
authorize them to use force to implement Resolution 1701. Western allies like
the US have also failed to achieve this goal.
Even
if the new deal ends Hezbollah’s armed presence south of the Litani River, this
would not necessarily mean that the balance of deterrence with Israel would be
significantly altered. As Shehadeh explains:
“It is clear that in the
south of the Litani, missiles were launched from the valleys in the Eastern,
Central, and Western strips. It will impact the resistance operationally but
not weaken it. Should the resistance be forced to, I believe it will move these
weapons from the south to the north of the Litani.”
It
is also the case that violations from the Israeli side will now be under closer
scrutiny with the formation of the international committee. Israel has violated
this resolution on a near-daily basis for years, mostly through illegal
overflights into Lebanese airspace.
Meanwhile,
other Israeli objectives also appear to have failed to materialize. This
includes a domestic Lebanese uprising against Hezbollah, which Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly called for in an address to the Lebanese
people.
Tel
Aviv also failed to return by force the tens of thousands of northern settlers
who have been “displaced” by Hezbollah rocket fire, despite having declared
publicly in September that this was a new goal in its war objectives.
Perhaps
most importantly, Israel has not succeeded in severely undermining Hezbollah’s
fighting capability. Last Sunday – just days before the ceasefire – the
Lebanese resistance launched one of its heaviest, most potent missile attacks
on Israel since the outbreak of the latest round of hostilities.
According
to Hezbollah, several military sites in Tel Aviv were targeted, in addition to
the Ashdod naval base, which lies even further south. Video footage and data
from Israelis also showed unprecedented damage to structures and vehicles in
key northern and central cities, such as Petah Tikva, Haifa, Nahariya, and Tel
Aviv – the state's most important industrial, commercial, financial, and tech
centers.
The
Israeli military and media confirmed that air sirens went off in the suburbs of
Tel Aviv and that around four million people – almost half of Israel's total
population – were forced into shelters that day. Concurrently, in Lebanon's
south, Hezbollah soldiers were putting up a strong fight against invading
Israeli ground forces, preventing them from infiltrating deep into Lebanese
territory or holding any significant ground.
The
resistance lives to fight another day
These
realities stand out as a significant failure on the part of Israel and an
important feat on the part of Hezbollah, precisely because the latter had
accumulated unprecedented heavy losses: the assassination of its former
secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah and several senior military commanders, in
addition to the pager detonation operation which took thousands of the
resistance fighters out of combat.
But
that the Lebanese movement managed to survive a security-intelligence war the
likes of which the world had never seen should not come as that much of a
surprise, given its sheer size.
As
observers have noted, Hezbollah has deep institutional and bureaucratic roots
inside Lebanon that make targeted attacks and security operations – despite
their level of sophistication – insufficient in bringing the resistance to its
knees. As Nasrallah often repeated, and as has since been chanted in the
streets of Beirut after his martyrdom: “Never will we accept humiliation.”
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