Since October 1, the Israeli army has been carrying out ground fighting in this region of Lebanon, where the Islamist movement has been established since its creation in 1982.
How far will Israel go in Lebanon? After a campaign of massive aerial bombardments which killed several Hezbollah leaders and left hundreds dead, the Jewish state has been leading a ground offensive in the south of the country since Tuesday. Although the Israeli army claims to be carrying out operations there “limited and targeted”the clashes intensified. According to Israel, on Friday October 4, 15 fighters from the Lebanese Islamist group were killed and nine Israeli soldiers lost their lives. A million Lebanese, according to the UN, have also had to flee their homes, amplifying the chaos in a country already in crisis.
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This open conflict is an extension of the cross-border attacks carried out in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah since October 7. Since then, according to official figures, nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, on the border with Israel. A figure destined to increase, since the Israeli army has warned that it will fight Hezbollah until the “victory”. Explanations.
A strategic zone and historical resistance to Israel
South Lebanon is an agricultural region, dominated by hills and mountains, “whose population is quite poor, composed mainly of Shiite Muslims”developed for franceinfo Clara Hage, journalist for the Lebanese daily L’Orient-le-Jour. The area affected by the fighting begins in the north, in Saida, and extends to the urban center of Tire as far as the blue line drawn by the UN in 2000, which separates Israel and Lebanon. It is also crossed by the Litani and Nahr El Awali rivers. In a military context, these waterways are natural fortifications to obtain tactical advantages, develops the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank based in Washington. The steep terrain of the region also makes it possible to organize ambushes or conceal attacks.
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South Lebanon has always been a base of confrontation with Israel. In 1948, when the Jewish state was created, thousands of Palestinians went into exile to neighboring Arab countries, and 110,000 of them then settled in Lebanon, particularly in the South. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) established military bases there and launched attacks against Israel, developing the program “Le Dessous des Cartes” on Arte.
“The PLO needed to be in a region with a direct border with Israel and Jordan had expelled it from its territory. That’s why it settled in Lebanon.”
Clara Hage, journalist at “L’Orient-le-Jour”at franceinfo
In March 1978, in order to ensure its security and to put an end to PLO attacks, Israel invaded South Lebanon during Operation “Litani”, with a heavy human toll. This invasion allowed Israel to push the PLO beyond the Litani River and led to an indirect occupation of the border area by Israel, via a Christian Lebanese militia supported by Israel, explains TV5 Monde.
A region where Hezbollah is strongly established
At the beginning of the 1980s, the Shiite populations of South Lebanon were abandoned by the Lebanese government, administered by Maronite Christians and Sunnis. At the same time, the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 shook the region. Tehran asserts itself in Lebanon among the Shiites and sends hundreds of Revolutionary Guards into the country, summarizes The World.
In this context, the Lebanese Hezbollah was created in 1982 with the help of Tehran. In its founding manifesto, the movement describes Israel as the “absolute evil”developed The World. In South Lebanon, it “is developed through charitable organizations to help the most deprived families”, continues Clara Hage, “which also allows it to extend its influence and recruit members.”
“There is not a village in southern Lebanon where Hezbollah is not strongly present.”
Hezbollah takes over from Palestinian organizations to fight Israel. The two parties clashed regularly until 2000, the year when the Israeli left, coming to power, decided to permanently withdraw the IDF from Lebanese territory. After nearly twenty years of occupation, this withdrawal is experienced in Israel as a humiliation, underlines Releaseand a historic victory for Hezbollah.
It allows the Shiite militia to continue to develop its military arsenal. In 2006, Israel invaded South Lebanon again to destroy Hezbollah structures, but encountered the determination of Islamist fighters. After 33 days of fighting, the Israeli army is once again forced to retreat. “This“was a first in the Arab world, no other army had succeeded in confronting Israel.” recalls Clara Hage. Despite the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 in 2006, which called for the disarmament of all armed groups, Hezbollah has only grown in political and military power since. Its military equipment is considered to be one of the most important in the world for a non-state group.
The “new center of gravity” of the war between Israel and Hamas
At the end of September, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he wanted to make northern Israel the “new center of gravity of war” carried out against Hamas since October 7. The Israeli government thus hopes to allow the return of around 60,000 inhabitants of the border regions, displaced for a year by Hezbollah’s incessant rocket fire towards the north of its territory. However, resettling people in their homes requires creating a secure environment. Even though the UN has been present in the region since 2006, via the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), it only has a surveillance role.
Several of Hezbollah’s units are deployed in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, asThe Nasr and Aziz units and the elite Radwan force, made up of several thousand fighters, specifies Associated Press. Like Hamas, the Lebanese militia has also built an underground network in this area. “Israel’s real reason is that it wants to establish a buffer zone like the one created in 1970.” estimates from franceinfo Jihane Sfeir, specialist in the contemporary Arab world and teacher at the Free University of Brussels. If respected, this neutral zone would make it possible to permanently distance Hezbollah fighters and structures from the border.
Because the power of Hezbollah and its combat experience, notably alongside the regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria in 2011, make it a much more dangerous threat than Hamas, analyzes the CSIS. For years, Israeli officials have feared that it would carry out an attack of the type carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, underlines the New York Times.
“No one knows exactly what the Israeli objective is, destroy Hezbollah to the end, occupy the territory, establish a sort of security perimeter?
Thursday, October 3, the chief of staff of the Israeli army, General Herzi Halevi, assured that “the severe blows dealt to Hezbollah“in the south of Lebanon were going “continue”. Israel will not allow Hezbollah to “settle” again in southern Lebanon, he said.