Benny Gantz, a former member of the country’s war cabinet, announced Tuesday (June 25) at a conference at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel. ‘We can plunge Lebanon completely into darkness and take away Hezbollah’s power in a day.’
It was the latest threat from a prominent Israeli figure after tensions flared between Lebanon and Hezbollah.
It will not be difficult for Israel to plunge Lebanon into darkness. Because, due to decades of mismanagement and economic decline, the country’s electric line system has already broken down. It is somehow working. A few precise airstrikes can easily finish it off.
However, it will take a long time to take away Hezbollah’s power within days. Because, since the inconclusive war of 2006, Israel is planning to play a war again with the armed group of Lebanon. Hezbollah is not far behind. They have been preparing for war for a long time.
According to Israeli estimates, the group has at least 150,000 missiles and rockets in its arsenal. Hezbollah has already launched 5,000 of them since October. Which means, much of the group’s arsenal remains intact. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah said as much in a speech last week.
CNN reported that Israeli officials were surprised by the prowess of the armed group’s attacks.
These include systematic precision strikes on Israeli border surveillance outposts, shooting down Israeli drones in the air, and the ability to strike Israel’s Iron Dome batteries and anti-drone defenses.
Perhaps the biggest surprise for Israel, however, was the nine minutes of drone footage Hezbollah released online. The footage shows highly sensitive civilian and military infrastructure in and around the northern city of Haifa.
Highly trained and disciplined
In addition to weapons, Hezbollah is capable of fielding 40,000 to 50,000 fighters on the battlefield. Nasrallah recently claimed that this number is more than 1 lakh. Many of these fighters have experience fighting regime forces in the Syrian civil war.
Hezbollah is not like many other guerrilla groups. As a fighting force, its group is highly trained and disciplined. In the correspondent’s experience for this report, encounters with Hezbollah fighters during the 2006 war were rare.
CNN reported on his experience, ‘One day we found several of their fighters in the ruins of a village in southern Lebanon. They were polite but firm. Insisted that we leave immediately for our own safety. But they did not want to hear no in response.
Lebanon is not surrounded by hostile neighbors like Gaza. The country has profound strategic advantages. Lebanon’s allied governments in Syria and Iraq allow the country direct access to Iran.
Israel has regularly attacked targets in Syria for years. The country believes the country allows Hezbollah weapons to be transported through its territory.
In the event of an all-out war, both sides would be able to significantly hurt the other.
A game of fire and blood
Earlier this year, Reichmann University, where Gantz spoke, published a report titled “Fire and Blood: Israel Faces the Grim Reality of War with Hezbollah.” The report outlines a dire scenario in which Iran’s allies would fire 2,500 to 3,000 rockets and missiles per day for weeks, targeting Israeli military installations as well as densely populated cities in the center of the country. It is estimated that Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets during the 34-day war in 2006. They fired an average of 117 rockets a day.
While this capability of Hezbollah’s weapons would not result in mutually assured destruction in a war with Israel, it would cause considerable devastation in both countries. And the burden of that loss will be heavy on both sides.
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