It seems Israel's most severe national security threat in 2021 and perhaps over the next several years is Lebanon. While the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah have established mutual deterrence, security officials in Jerusalem estimate that the risk of an escalation is on the rise because tactical events could change the dynamics.
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Lebanon is undergoing a severe socioeconomic crisis that has political ethnic components as well. Although Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese government, it operates independently and does not assume responsibility for what is happening in the country. It has its own fighters and weapons and receives support from Iran. And although the terror group is not completely unaffected by the crisis, it continues to strengthen its military capabilities.
The prevailing assumption among Israel's security officials is that the Lebanese chaos can keep Hezbollah from taking violent action against Israel, but history has shown that such a crisis can bring rivals together in order to confront a common external enemy.
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has in recent years created a kind of blood-for-blood discourse, threatening to retaliate against every Israeli attack in Lebanon. He has also vowed to retaliate if an attack attributed to Israel on Syrian soil inflicts harm to Hezbollah operatives in the country.
In July 2020, when a Hezbollah operative was killed in Damascus during a strike attributed to Israel, Nasrallah vowed to avenge his death. The IDF was on alert for over 100 days, but despite several attempts, Hezbollah was unable to successfully carry out an attack.
Over the past 12 months, the IDF has grown increasingly concerned over a possible escalation because of repeated rocket attacks from Lebanon, most recently during the 11-day conflict with Hamas. The majority of the incidents have been the work of Palestinian organizations in Lebanon, most likely stationed in refugee camps around the southern city of Tyre, but the most serious incident occurred at the beginning of August, when Palestinian groups fired three rockets from Lebanon into Israel and the IDF responded with artillery fire, followed by an attack by fighter jets near the Lebanese village of Aaichiyeh.
Two days later, Hezbollah cast itself as the protector of Lebanon and launched 19 rockets into Israel, the highest since the 2006 Lebanon War. Wishing to avoid an escalation, the IDF chose not to retaliate using fighter jets again, but only with artillery. That decision prevented further escalation, which could have possibly led to several days of fighting.
Hezbollah has more than 70,000 rockets that have a variety of ranges. It also has tens of thousands of mortar shells. Some of the rockets can strike a target at an accuracy of several meters. All this is a source of great concern for the IDF.
The Israeli military estimates that Hezbollah has about a hundred precision-guided munitions as well as the capability to produce more on an industrial scale. Israeli national security officials are concerned that if Hezbollah's efforts on this front are successful, the balance of power with Israel would change dramatically.
Top security officials and lawmakers have often debated whether the threat of precision-guided munitions from Lebanon warrants a preemptive strike by Israel. For now, they don't believe the threat level has reached that point.
Since its founding, Israel has preferred to let its enemies amass strength rather than risk an escalation. The only two exceptions to this were the 1981 attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor and the 2007 attack on the Syrian reactor.
Therefore, Israel's current response to Hezbollah's efforts comprises both covert moves and the overt sharing of information with the public.
There is also the threat posed by Hezbollah's drones, antitank missiles, cruise missiles, and of course, the threat of attack by its elite Radwan Unit, which includes several thousand fighters who cut their teeth in the Syrian Civil War.
This accumulated experience has led to a perpetual change within the terrorist organization, which is also reflected in Nasrallah's speeches and his use of the term "occupation of the Galilee."
In this context, Hezbollah is preparing for a surprise attack on Israel, during which if a war were to break out, it would deploy its forces to infiltrate Israeli territory and take over outposts or towns close to the border, thereby disrupting the IDF's ground maneuver capabilities.
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As such, the IDF Northern Command is working to improve infrastructure along the northern border in a way that would make it difficult for the Radwan Unit to infiltrate the country. After many years of warning by the Northern Command of the poor condition of the northern border, the government has finally approved a budget for the construction of a better barrier.
Moreover, Israel has been preparing for a campaign in Lebanon for years, based on the understanding that it poses the biggest threat. The IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate has compiled a long list of potential targets in Lebanon, including regime installations, as a means of holding the government accountable for any terrorist activity conducted from its territory.
Nevertheless, despite the IDF's intense preparations, no one doubts that a campaign in Lebanon would be nothing like the 2006 Lebanon War or even the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah's rockets pose a major challenge to the Iron Dome, and should hostilities erupt, the air defense system would have to defend strategic sites at the expense of population centers.
In such a scenario, the only way for the IDF to deal with the threat from the north would be to take swift and aggressive action. To that end, it must immediately bolster the combat worthiness of its ground forces, which are currently (to put it mildly), not in their best shape.
