Khalil Elhalo, a political and strategic affairs scholar, stated in an interview with the Saudi network Al-Hadath last week that a third Hezbollah-Israeli war would be different, as “Israel this time has a very advanced weapons system developed, unlike in 2006”.
“In 2006, there were no missile defense systems in Israel,” he said. Today, they have the Iron Dome system, David’s Sling and the Arrow 3, and Israel also has four artificial intelligence systems.
“These artificial intelligence systems can categorize tens of thousands of Hamas targets in Gaza and thousands more in Lebanon. From a physical point of view, these targets can be buildings, empty houses or wooded areas, etc. All this, as far as belong to Israel, are targets of Hezbollah, whether they are combat centers, logistics centers or underground headquarters”.
“Most Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon are invisible and underground.”
Elhalo also said that “Since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Israel has reassessed the performance of its military and conducted exercises so as not to fall into the same mistakes it made in 2006.”
“Regarding Hezbollah, it is worth noting that both sides recognized or agreed to Resolution 1701, but it was not implemented even for a second by either side, except for a temporary cessation of hostilities. Since 2006, Hezbollah has mainly recruited young people. from the southern region into its ranks, and we know this because all the dead Hezbollah operatives are residents of the South.
Therefore, the organization does not need to mobilize fighters from the North to the South, and has developed a network of fighters in 65 villages in the south.”
“Also, we can say that they are prepared by their munitions and tunnels. We have not seen a single Israeli aircraft attack a truck carrying ammunition or operatives in southern Lebanon. So Hezbollah has been preparing for this campaign for a long time, perhaps because the 2006 war was inconclusive and neither side had a final victory.
the 2006 war
“The Israelis say they won it because they reached Litani in time, while Hezbollah says it had a divine victory because it forced Israel to retreat. In fact, the war between the two sides never ended, and both sides have been preparing for it since year 2006. .”
“From 2006 to 2019 the south Lebanon front was relatively quiet, but since 2019 we have started to see violations by Hezbollah firing against Israel and Israel firing into uninhabited areas with a small number of casualties from both parties. Of course Israel’s violations violate the Lebanese airspace every day.”
“Hezbollah initiated this escalation and focused on ‘uniting the fronts’, engaging with loyal proxies in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Hamas and similar entities to the extent that even before October 7, rockets were launched from Lebanon. from the areas controlled by However, all this happened before the war, so to some extent this war broke out suddenly and Hezbollah said that they did not foresee it.
#Researcher #Hezbollah #Israel #preparing #war
Image Source : www.jpost.com