Hamas invaded Israel 2023

[Colin Parkinson]

I am thinking it's time to split this into a new thread titled "Paging Hezbollah, Paging Hezbollah......"

 

[Cloud Cover]

Describing action as “raids” implies an intent to go in, achieve an objective, and get out. Guess we will see.

Israel begins Lebanon ground incursion with ‘limited’ raids on Hezbollah

The mobilization took place as the Israel Defence Forces issued evacuation orders for several areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where their Friday bombardment killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

www.theglobeandmail.com

I certainly hope they don’t have a repeat of the early 1980’s….

 

[Staff Weenie]

I'm curious, and wondering if anyone here who is more learned in the region has any thoughts or articles to recommend. My question is this: Lebanon is in theory a sovereign state, yet they have Hezbollah operating with seemingly absolute impunity within their borders. Does this mean that the Lebanese government is:

a. Powerless to remove Hezbollah;
b. Partially to completely complicit with Hezbollah; or
c. A combination of the above.

Are the Lebanese government, military, and civilian police heavily infiltrated by Hezbollah? If so, would that make Lebanon a vassal state of Iran?

I had heard that Hezbollah used a lot of foreign (Iranian) funds to provide health care and education in the region, therefore buying loyalty at the grass roots level, but I'm not certain how far up the food chain their power/influence goes.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm curious, and wondering if anyone here who is more learned in the region has any thoughts or articles to recommend. My question is this: Lebanon is in theory a sovereign state, yet they have Hezbollah operating with seemingly absolute impunity within their borders. Does this mean that the Lebanese government is:

a. Powerless to remove Hezbollah;
b. Partially to completely complicit with Hezbollah; or
c. A combination of the above.

Are the Lebanese government, military, and civilian police heavily infiltrated by Hezbollah? If so, would that make Lebanon a vassal state of Iran?

I had heard that Hezbollah used a lot of foreign (Iranian) funds to provide health care and education in the region, therefore buying loyalty at the grass roots level, but I'm not certain how far up the food chain their power/influence goes.

Will this, from Foreign Affairs a few days ago, help?

----------​

Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe​

How to Avert a Larger War That Neither Side Should Want​

By Dana Stroul​

September 23, 2024

Within 24 hours of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack, Hezbollah followed with an attack of its own, launching projectiles from Lebanon into northern Israel. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, explained that the campaign was intended to strain Israel’s resources and force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), then preparing its response to Hamas in Gaza, to fight on two fronts. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar hoped that Hezbollah, along with other Iranian-backed groups across the Middle East, would encircle Israel in a “ring of fire,” overwhelm its defenses, and threaten its existence.

Yet Nasrallah instead chose a middle-ground approach of incremental escalation—a pragmatic effort to signal solidarity with Hamas without risking Hezbollah’s survival as the most sophisticated and lethal arm of Iran’s proxy network. Since then, Hezbollah has continued to design its attacks to stay below the threshold of a full-scale conflagration. The group has continuously pressured northern Israel, forcing an estimated 80,000 civilians to evacuate their homes (creating a political challenge for the Israeli governing coalition) and forcing the IDF to allocate limited air defense, air power, and personnel to the north. But the confined geographic scope of the attacks; their target selection of military sites rather than civilian areas; and the choice of weapons used, refraining from drawing on an arsenal of precision-guided missiles, are telling.

Until recently, Israel’s leaders opted for retaliatory strikes that didn’t reach the scope or scale to trigger a full-scale war in the north. With each Hezbollah attack, Israel responded with its own pattern of incremental escalation that saw the IDF strike deeper into Lebanon, employ more lethal tactics against higher-profile Hezbollah targets, and create a civilian-free buffer zone in southern Lebanon, from which tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians have been displaced. These daily exchanges always carried a high risk of a miscalculation or accident that would result in a mass casualty event, sending escalation spiraling upward. But for months after October 7, both sides seemed able to keep that risk in check.

Now, however, the violent choreography of incremental escalation and calculated strikes may no longer be sustainable. The shift started in late July, when a Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 Druze children playing soccer in the Israeli town of Majdal Shams. Israel responded by targeting Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukr, in a residential building in Beirut. At first, the dynamic appeared to be little changed: Israel used precision weapons against Shukr to minimize collateral damage. And after Israel, in late August, preemptively struck Hezbollah missile launchers set to attack military sites in Israel, Hezbollah’s response signaled a limited willingness to escalate. Nasrallah made clear shortly after that he was ready to return to the incrementalism of the status quo ante.

Yet in recent weeks, IDF strikes and targeted assassinations have been occurring at a pace and on a scale that indicate a higher risk tolerance and a readiness to enter a new phase of the conflict with Hezbollah. Back-to-back operations on September 17 and 18, in which Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, set a new record for Hezbollah casualties, with at least 30 dead and thousands injured. Although the operation was designed to limit civilian casualties, since only senior Hezbollah operatives would have been utilizing devices capable of receiving the messages, the group’s integration into the fabric of Lebanese society meant that many of the explosions occurred in civilian areas. On September 20, Israel executed another targeted assassination strike on a group of elite Hezbollah forces meeting in a residential building in a Beirut suburb. This time, an estimated 30 civilians were killed.


The two sides appear locked in an upward military spiral, but both would lose more than they would gain from a full-scale war right now. The incentive structures in Israel and Lebanon should compel both sets of leaders to de-escalate and energize diplomatic arrangements to restore calm on the border. The experience of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and the reality that a war today would be exponentially more devastating—in loss of lives, collateral damage, and the risk of regional spillover—offer additional reasons for both sides to back down. This is also why U.S. negotiators, including the White House envoy Amos Hochstein, have received consistent high-level access in both Israel and Lebanon as they work to negotiate the parameters of a diplomatic arrangement to end hostilities.

The problem is that Nasrallah has linked Hezbollah’s campaign to the war in Gaza. For months, he has received little serious pushback to the notion that de-escalation cannot happen without a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This effectively holds Israel and Lebanon hostage to the decision-making of Sinwar, bound to the decisions of one man hiding in the tunnels beneath Gaza despite clear incentives to de-escalate.

HEZBOLLAH’S ERODING BASE​

Hezbollah would lose far more than that it would gain from a full-scale war with Israel. Following the 34-day war in 2006, Nasrallah said he regretted Hezbollah’s cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, which prompted a severe Israeli military response and the deaths of at least 1,000 Lebanese civilians. Nasrallah appears to recognize that an Israeli air campaign or ground incursion in 2024 would be significantly more devastating for Lebanon, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and collateral damage and risking the already weakening support for Hezbollah across Lebanese society.

An Israeli campaign that intends not to deter Hezbollah but to dislodge it from its entrenched positions and destroy its arsenal would not be limited to military targets or to the country’s south. Hezbollah has long worked to shield its weapons by embedding them in urban and civilian areas throughout Lebanon, assuming that Israel would not risk the reputational harm and accusations of violating international law that would arise from an air campaign that targets civilian areas. But since October 7, Israel has been much more willing to tolerate such criticism, as its offensive in Gaza has made clear. Israel would likely strike Hezbollah’s long-range missile arsenal, much of which is situated in densely populated areas including Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, even if it meant a greater risk of civilian harm.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s support within Lebanon’s multiethnic and religiously diverse society is already weak. Hezbollah is widely viewed as responsible for storing the powerful explosives in Beirut’s port that led to a 2020 explosion, killing several hundred, and the subsequent intimidation of judges and investigators seeking to ensure accountability. A recent Arab Barometer survey indicated that 55 percent of Lebanese have “no trust at all” in Hezbollah. The only part of Lebanese society in which support for Hezbollah remains strong is within the Shiite population, the communities in southern Lebanon reliant on the organization for social and economic support. By failing to take steps to prevent a full-scale war with Israel, the costs of which would be carried by all Lebanese, Hezbollah would receive considerable blame.

What’s more, Hezbollah has incurred heavy operational and leadership losses over the past 11 months, which should prompt serious questions as to how long it can afford to be on the receiving end of Israeli action before the organization suffers generational degradation. These losses would increase exponentially in a full-scale conflict. In April, the IDF said that it had killed six Hezbollah brigade-level commanders and over 30 battalion-level commanders. As of September 20, Israel had assassinated Hezbollah’s operational commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and dozens of commanders in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. A September 21 IDF statement claimed that “Hezbollah’s military chain of command has been almost completely dismantled.” IDF airstrikes also targeted Hezbollah military bases, command-and-control infrastructure, runways, and weapons caches across southern Lebanon. No military organization can sustain this level of losses without experiencing a significant impact on morale and operational effectiveness. Nasrallah’s refusal to delink his organization’s fate from a cease-fire in Gaza is pushing Hezbollah to the tipping point of operational collapse.

End of Part 1

 

[Edward Campbell]

Part 2

ISRAEL’S MISSING STRATEGY​

For Israel, the incentives also argue against a large-scale war with Hezbollah. After nearly a year of fighting in Gaza, the IDF is tired, munitions stockpiles are depleted, public support for Israel’s leaders is weak, Israel’s economy is suffering, and its international and regional standing have significantly eroded. And IDF military planners are well aware that Hezbollah’s more advanced fighting capabilities and sophisticated weapons arsenal would make the Gaza campaign look like child’s play.


Hezbollah’s missile, rocket, and drone arsenal would strain Israel’s defensive capabilities, especially when targeting shifts from military to civilian areas. A Reichman University war game shortly before Hamas’s October 7 attack predicted that Hezbollah can launch 2,500 to 3,000 missile and rocket attacks into Israel per day for weeks. Some estimates calculate Hezbollah’s missile, rocket, and drone arsenal to be at least 150,000 strong—ten times the number of munitions it had during the 2006 war—and it now includes precision-guided munitions that could threaten strategic sites within Israel. Israel’s stock of Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile interceptors would be depleted within days. The Reichman war game also anticipated volleys of precision-guided and loitering munitions targeting Israel’s critical infrastructure and civilian centers; it was assumed that U.S. military assistance would not be sufficient or timely enough to back up strained Israeli air defenses, forcing the IDF to defend only priority areas.

Given the anticipated strain on Israel’s air defenses, Israeli military planners have long assessed that large-scale offensive and preemptive operations would be necessary against Hezbollah. A massive air campaign could take out rocket and precision-guided munitions sites, but even this effort would be complicated by Hezbollah’s network of underground tunnels, which, according to a report from the Alma Research Center, is even more developed than Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza. Israel might be compelled to use heavier ordnance against these tunnels, increasing the level of destruction across Lebanon. And a ground campaign would ultimately be necessary to clear fighters, weapons caches, and launch sites village by village and tunnel by tunnel, a departure from the recent approach of using just air power and artillery.

The Biden administration’s May 2024 decision to pause the delivery of certain munitions highlighted a critical vulnerability for Israel: its depleted weapons caches after months of war in Gaza. In July, the IDF acknowledged that it was suffering from a shortage of tanks, after many were damaged in Gaza, as well as ammunition and personnel. There are also reported shortages of spare parts, none of which can be replenished as quickly as an expanded war in Lebanon would require. Some Israeli tanks in Gaza are not fully loaded with shells because of strains on supply. Given the expectation that a war in Lebanon would not be limited in time, scope, or geography, no military would want to initiate a second front with such low levels of operational readiness.

The IDF should also be concerned about the impact on Israel’s manpower. In June, an Israeli organization that provides support to IDF reservists reported that 10,000 reservists had requested mental health support, thousands had been laid off from civilian jobs, and some 1,000 businesses operated by reservists had shut down. It also reported that a significant number of reservists had failed to report for duty after being called up for a second or third time because of burnout. Exhaustion is also prevalent among active-duty forces. In July, four IDF commanders met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sound the alarm about the state of their forces. Low morale and growing fatigue across Israel’s fighting force should give Israeli decision-makers pause as they consider an expanded war.

Israel’s economy has also incurred significant losses, which would be compounded if the country was embroiled in a follow-on war in Lebanon. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate that Israel’s economy is experiencing the sharpest slowdown among wealthy countries today, with its gross domestic product contracting 4.1 percent since October 7. Rating agencies such as Fitch have lowered Israel’s credit score, assessing that military spending will increase the country’s deficit. Adding an expanded campaign in Lebanon to the ongoing one in Gaza would considerably exacerbate the strain on Israel’s economy.

THE TOLL OF ESCALATION​

Despite the clear incentives for both Israel and Hezbollah to de-escalate, the two sides are trapped in an escalatory cycle. On September 22, Hezbollah responded to Israel’s recent attacks with a barrage of rockets, missiles, and drones targeting what it claimed to be military zones near Haifa—pushing the geographic boundaries of previous Hezbollah strikes and showing a willingness to target areas that are also home to civilians. To date, Israel has refrained from striking Hezbollah precision-guided munitions arsenals that are located in populated civilian areas, yet both sides are showing a willingness to expand targets that would have greater collateral damage and reach further into the other’s territory. Immediately after Hezbollah’s attack, Lebanese civilians received messages instructing them to evacuate areas where Hezbollah stores weapons, and the IDF launched its largest set of strikes since the 2006 war, with more than 300 Lebanese already reported killed. If this scope and scale of strikes continues, it will make clear that Israel has decided to enter a new phase of the war.

Nasrallah trapped Hezbollah when he insisted that its campaign would continue until there is a cease-fire in Gaza. But Sinwar’s maximalist approach to negotiations puts a cease-fire further out of reach, and there is every reason to believe that the IDF will not fully disengage from Gaza for some time, given both Israel’s refusal to agree to a new Palestinian civilian governance structure and the low odds that an international mission or Arab security force would provide security in the absence of a path toward Palestinian statehood. The conditions are set for an ongoing IDF presence in Gaza, which, by Nasrallah’s logic, will prevent Hezbollah from standing down.

Yet Israeli leaders are also trapped. Last week’s pager and walkie-talkie operations and the current phase of Israeli strikes have dealt a significant blow to Hezbollah, and the United States continues to maintain a strong military posture in the region. As a result, Israeli policymakers may be tempted to believe that they can deal a once-in-a-generation below to Hezbollah and rely on the United States for back up should Iran come to Hezbollah’s aid. Yet the Israeli government has not provided the IDF with specific, achievable military goals or articulated a realistic end state for Hezbollah—laying the groundwork for an extended offensive with ill-defined objectives prone to mission creep. (Recently, the government said that one of its war goals is returning displaced Israelis to their homes in northern Israel—a strategic end state, not a military objective that offers operational guidance.) And without international consensus on how to deal with Lebanon given Hezbollah’s stranglehold on the state, Israel risks locking the IDF into another scenario in which military tools are expected to resolve fundamentally political questions.

There are still ways to prevent a full-scale war. The U.S. government has worked for months to negotiate a diplomatic framework in which Hezbollah’s forces move some four miles away from the Israeli border and United Nations and national Lebanese forces move into southern Lebanon. Yet this U.S.-endorsed de-escalation framework is tied to a cease-fire in Gaza, and no one can afford to wait for that outcome. A regional pressure campaign should bring in other parties to press Nasrallah to delink his negotiations from Hamas and Gaza. And the U.S. diplomatic strategy should also shift, moving de-escalation messaging into intelligence rather than traditional diplomatic channels and coordinating more closely with key European governments, such as Paris and Berlin, which retain meaningful leverage in Lebanon. This new engagement format should push for informal understandings rather than official commitments.

While the United States enhances efforts to de-escalate, it should also continue to convey its commitment to Israel’s defense. Nasrallah must understand that escalation will not drive a wedge between Jerusalem and Washington. Hezbollah and its patron Iran will be more likely to consider de-escalation if it is understood that Israel is not isolated. Iranian senior leaders have spent the past 11 months pressuring Israel while seeking to stay below the threshold of a full-scale war. They should recognize that if Iran enters into this conflict, the United States is likely to as well, threatening, among other things, Tehran’s primary insurance policy against Israel—Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal and army.

Finally, the United States should continue to push Israel to articulate its plan for winding down military operations against Hamas and prioritizing Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Movement on this front will deny Hezbollah, Iran, and the rest of the axis of resistance the upper hand in a regional narrative that paints Hamas as a legitimate defender of Palestinian interests. Such progress is essential to Israel’s long-term security—something that its leaders, trapped by short-term decision-making, have seemed unable to grasp.

----------​

Dana Stroul is Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from February 2021 to February 2024.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Had the international community through the UN pressured Hezbollah and given the UN forces more rigorous ROE to enforce the demilitarized zone, then likley this would not have happened. Of course the UN will blame everyone but itself. The UN failed in Gaza and Lebanon.

 

[Kirkhill]

Had the international community through the UN pressured Hezbollah and given the UN forces more rigorous ROE to enforce the demilitarized zone, then likley this would not have happened. Of course the UN will blame everyone but itself. The UN failed in Gaza and Lebanon.

The problem you have there is that Israel is a creation of the American UN of 1945. That UN created Israel and imposed it on the local map.

Since then the locals have taken over the UN, along with a large number of like minded autocrats, and have been using the Roberts Rules of Order against the US, the UK and Israel.

Contrary to popular wishes, no progress is made.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The "locals" had more say in the region under the British Mandate, League of Nations and the UN, then they ever did before under the Ottomans.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The problem you have there is that Israel is a creation of the American UN of 1945. That UN created Israel and imposed it on the local map.

Since then the locals have taken over the UN, along with a large number of like minded autocrats, and have been using the Roberts Rules of Order against the US, the UK and Israel.

Contrary to popular wishes, no progress is made.

The locals - Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, etc - were all there, full UN members, in 1948. They all voted against partition and they all went to war ... and lost. I seem to recall reading somewhere that one reaps what one sows.

 

[Staff Weenie]

Thanks Edward, very much appreciated. And, over the last few days, this calculation has now fully changed with the death of Nasrallah, the US keeping a second Carrier task force in the region, and the news this morning from BBC that Iran is preparing a ballistic missile strike on Israel. Both sides are possibly now fully locked in a game of chicken, and neither can afford to blink.

 

[Kirkhill]

The locals - Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, etc - were all there, full UN members, in 1948. They all voted against partition and they all went to war ... and lost. I seem to recall reading somewhere that one reaps what one sows.

There were locals there but they were in the minority. They were outvoted by Marshall's Latin American block, the OAS, that was chartered on 30 April 1948, 14 days before Israel declared independence. Few of the modern Commonwealth states had voting rights and those tend to vote against Israel these days.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Good Grey Globe's Tony Keller asks a good question:

----------​

Will Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah be another missed opportunity?​

TONY KELLER
PUBLISHED 5 HOURS AGO

Israeli diplomat Abba Eban famously said that his country’s Arab neighbours “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” But missing opportunities is also an old Israeli habit.

The abrupt decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership presents one of those rare opportunities. And the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is almost certainly going to miss it.

Israel has long wanted to secure its northern border by removing Hezbollah from Lebanon, a move that would also diminish Iran’s power across the Middle East. Most Arab governments share these objectives, though they won’t say it too loudly.

The road to achieving these twin goals has been suddenly opened by Israel’s surprising military success against Hezbollah. But this opening created by military means can only be secured through diplomacy, deal-making and politics. A lasting peace on Israel’s northern border cannot be accomplished by Israel alone, or by military means alone. That’s the lesson of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and its dismal aftermath.

The Netanyahu government has talked about “escalating to de-escalate” in Lebanon. It’s usually a tactic of threatening the other side into backing down. But it can also be about shooting for an even bigger prize. Consider what happened after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Egypt had been humiliated and crushed by Israel six years earlier, in the Six-Day War, but the sequel was a different story. Israel prevailed, but it was a near-run thing. Anwar Sadat’s regime told the Egyptian public that, even though it had not reconquered Sinai, it had won a pride-restoring victory.

That allowed Sadat to dare to do the forbidden: talking to Israel. In 1978, he signed the land-for-peace Camp David accords. Israel returned Sinai to Egypt, and Egypt recognized Israel.

Sadat would later be assassinated by Islamists who believed in a different sort of opportunity. They wanted to “escalate to escalate” – to wage war until Israel’s destruction. That remains the position of Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. They’re willing to reach short-term tactical understandings with Israel, but the long-term peace they seek involves Israel’s violent disappearance.

However, that is not the position of most governments in the Arab world. Egypt and Jordan maintain a publicly frosty peace with Israel, while privately co-operating with it. As a result of the Abraham Accords of 2020, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have diplomatic relations with Israel.

And if Israel would extend even a small olive branch to the Palestinians and the possibility of a future Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia would quickly normalize relations with Israel.

Don’t tell the campus protesters, but moderate Arab states see Iran and its Islamist proxies as existential threats, while viewing Israel as no threat and even a potential ally. There’s a long-standing alignment of interests. Sudden success against Hezbollah creates an opportunity to further them.

Will the Netanyahu government seize this opportunity? It’s doubtful.

Ideally, Israel should offer to immediately start direct peace talks with the legitimate government of Lebanon – bypassing Hezbollah – with the aim of negotiating a comprehensive settlement of all disputes between the two countries. The United States, the Europeans and most of the Arab world would cheer.

And with Hamas reduced to a guerilla force in Gaza, now is the moment for Israel to surprise everyone by offering to talk to moderate Arab regimes about the establishment of an international administration in Gaza, as a first step to an eventual, post-Hamas Palestinian state.

Unfortunately, Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to take the first opportunity, and he’s repeatedly refused even the smallest steps on the second. He and his allies in government have given every sign that they see a future Palestinian state as a threat, not an opportunity. Mr. Netanyahu has long undermined and delegitimized the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank – which for all its faults is at least willing to talk to and work with Israel – while effectively empowering Hamas, which is committed to a one-state solution through the barrel of the gun.

Forty-two years ago, Israel invaded Lebanon to try to eliminate Palestine Liberation Organization guerillas who had long lobbed rockets across the border. By one measure, the operation was a success: The PLO was pushed back, defeated and forced to evacuate its forces from Lebanon. But short-term battlefield success bred bigger threats. By the time Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the old danger on the northern border had been replaced by something worse. Hezbollah was better organized and far more heavily armed than the PLO, and backed by Iran.

In 2006, Israeli forces again went into Lebanon, and eventually achieved a small diplomatic victory in the form of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. Under its terms, Lebanon’s government was supposed to regain full control of its territory; Hezbollah was to disarm; and a UN peacekeeping force was to make sure it remained north of the Litani River, 30 kilometres from the border.

None of that happened. Opportunity missed.

In 1973, Israel was surrounded by enemies sworn to the pursuit of its destruction. That’s no longer the map. Today, most Arab governments are primarily focused on the very real threat from Iran and its proxies. They fear Tehran, not Tel Aviv.

There’s opportunity there.

----------​

Once again I say that I'm so sad, for everyone in then region, that Yonatan Netanyahu, the incredibly smart and charismatic brother, was KIA at Entebbe. I don't think he would have missed the opportunities.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Some of the munitions they are finding

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I'm curious, and wondering if anyone here who is more learned in the region has any thoughts or articles to recommend. My question is this: Lebanon is in theory a sovereign state, yet they have Hezbollah operating with seemingly absolute impunity within their borders. Does this mean that the Lebanese government is:

a. Powerless to remove Hezbollah;
b. Partially to completely complicit with Hezbollah; or
c. A combination of the above.

Are the Lebanese government, military, and civilian police heavily infiltrated by Hezbollah? If so, would that make Lebanon a vassal state of Iran?

I had heard that Hezbollah used a lot of foreign (Iranian) funds to provide health care and education in the region, therefore buying loyalty at the grass roots level, but I'm not certain how far up the food chain their power/influence goes.

Lebanon is complicated. Lebanon was carved out of Syria by France as the Ottoman Empire was itself carved up following the First World War. Lebanon is quite diverse with Christians (Maronite and Eastern Orthodox), Sunni, Shia and Druze populations. Politically, Lebanon has a confessional system where each religion (confession) has a proportionate number of seats in Parliament. The Civil War had a number of causes, but part of the accords that ended the war was a bit of redistribution of seats. Christians and Muslims each have half of the seats, but of course the Sunni and Shia are competitors and there are also divisions in the Christian population. The President must be Christian, the Prime Minister must be Sunni and the Speaker of the Parliament must be Shia.

Villages and regions in Lebanon tend to have one dominant confession. The South West (along the Blue Line with Israel) and Bekkaa Valley (North West alongside Syria) are predominantly Shia, as are the southern suburbs of Beirut. So much of the area along the Blue Line with Israel (there is no recognized border) is Shia and therefore Hezbollah can operate there with greater ease. The coast north of Beirut and into Mont Liban are primarily Christian, but there are Christian areas in the south as well. The North (Tripoli and north) and South East are Sunni, but there are certainly communities from other confessions intermingled.

Hezbollah emerged during the civil war as a Shia resistance group and terror organization supported by post-Revolution Iran. They are a terror group, an armed paramilitary group and a political party. There has not been an official census since 1932, but it is currently estimated that 35% of the population is Shia. he political wing of Hezbollah has 15 of 128 seats in Parliament. The other major Shia party is Amal who have 14 seats. They work together in Parliament as the March 8th Alliance. A Sunni block with allies form an opposing coalition. Hezbollah is accused of assassinating the Sunni Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

Lebanon has a history of foreign occupation and influence. France called the shots for the early part of their history as a country. The PLO occupied many areas in Lebanon in the 70s which drew in the Israelis. Some of the civil war fighting was actually between Christian and Shia groups against the PLO. The Syrians occupied much of the country during the civil war. Israel occupied part of the south from 1982 until 2000. Iran works through Hezbollah, and Hezbollah fighters were Assad's shock troops when his regime was on the ropes during the 2012-2015 period. The Assad regime is Alawite, who are a Shia-affiliated religion in the minority in Syria. It is suspected that Assad used Hezbollah to assassinate the Lebanese PM in 2005, which led to the ousting of Syrian forces from Lebanon in a popular and mostly non-violent uprising (the Cedar Revolution). UNIFIL is present in the south.

Lebanon desperately wants to avoid another civil war - I can't blame them. The Lebanese Armed Forces are essentially an internal security force. I would not call Lebanon a vassal state of Iran, but Hezbollah is certainly a proxy of Iran. When you look at the demographic numbers it can put statements like "55% of the population do not trust Hezbollah" into perspective. It would be important if a large number of Shia did not support Hezbollah. That Sunnis and most Christians do not trust Hezbollah is hardly surprising.

Hezbollah's stock in Lebanon was high following the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 and after the 2006 war. Their implication in the assassination of the PM, though, did not help them build bridges to other confessional groups. There were some bad feelings about all the damage caused by the 2006 war, but Hezbollah was also seen as achieving a victory. Hezbollah's participation in the Syrian Civil War supporting the Assad regime and obvious Iraninan control hurt their brand outside of their traditional support base. There are areas in the South, North East and Beirut where Hezbollah support is very deep. Could that change? Of course - things change over time. Certainly a lot has happened recently! One thing to remember, though, is that they began as a resistance movement. So threat of foreign occupation kind of plays to their strength.

 

[Kilted]

Iran has fired missiles at Isreal.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-lebanon-war-hezbollah-10-1-24-intl-hnk/index.html

 

[Cloud Cover]

Thanks Edward, very much appreciated. And, over the last few days, this calculation has now fully changed with the death of Nasrallah, the US keeping a second Carrier task force in the region, and the news this morning from BBC that Iran is preparing a ballistic missile strike on Israel. Both sides are possibly now fully locked in a game of chicken, and neither can afford to blink.

It’s happening right now and there have been ground impacts in Tel Aviv.

Edit: some of these SRBM seem to have been intercepted in terminal phase…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841160230249349616

 

[OldSolduer]

It’s happening right now and there have been ground impacts in Tel Aviv.

Perhaps its time for the West to take the gloves off. No more pussyfooting around trying to achieve "diplomatic" solutions. It seems that Iran only understands brute force and maybe needs the equivalent of a "Glasgow kiss"

 

[brihard]

Shit. This is gonna be ugly. Iran volley fired ballistic missiles for TOT, and some look to have gotten through. Also an active shooter attack in Tel Aviv with several dead and two shooters believed to be neutralized.

Dead Israelis = Israel’s gonna beat the shit out of Iran in some way shape or form.

 

[OldSolduer]

Shit. This is gonna be ugly. Iran volley fired ballistic missiles for TOT, and some look to have gotten through. Also an active shooter attack in Tel Aviv with several dead and two shooters believed to be neutralized.

Dead Israelis = Israel’s gonna beat the shit out of Iran in some way shape or form.

Fully agree - Israel is not shy about exacting revenge when their citizens are murdered.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Direct hits in Tel Aviv are a strategic, political "win": for Bibi and the Warhawks and, equally, a strategic, political blow to Biden and the Peaceniks.

I also note that (more than one) official has saids that there is nowhere in the region - meaning, specifically Tehran, Sana'a and Aden - that are "out of reach" of Israel's military. There is some veiled speech there directed at and .