"The Time Has Come"
Before we dive into the dramatically intensifying military conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a step back may be helpful to establish the context in which it is occurring. Let’s go way back, like to the 2006 Lebanon war which was ultimately ended per the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requiring the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and the complete disarmament of Hezbollah and all other Lebanese forces south of the Litani River, other than those of the LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces). This resolution also embargoed arms by any party to any entity in southern Lebanon other than the Lebanese government. UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, was expanded to monitor and report on compliance.
So here’s how that works, the UN Security Council, the top body of the international community, is really good at announcing agreements and endowing them with official approval, and really, really bad at enforcing them or even criticizing their violation when the violations are committed against Israel. Israel indeed removed its troops from Lebanon per 1701, Hezbollah indeed violated the resolution starting day one, UNIFIL indeed observed it all, and the UNSC indeed did nothing.
The result was the establishment by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon of a wholesale military infrastructure including 150,000 missiles, a tunnel system the sophistication and scale of which makes Hamas’ look silly, and military buildings with yellow Hezbollah flags easily visible from Israel. To say UNIFIL and the international community has turned a blind eye to all this is to trivialize blindness.
And then October 8. The day following Hamas’ barbaric attacks, Hezbollah, acting in solidarity with Hamas and its ambition for the total destruction of Israel, began a barrage of rocket and missile fire into the communities of northern Israel. Hezbollah has no territorial dispute with Israel as the border between Lebanon and Israel, or “Blue Line,” was sanctioned by the UN Security Council in 2000. Hezbollah does, however, dispute the right for Israel to exist at all.
From October 8 to date Hezbollah launched 8,800 missiles and suicide drones into Israel. 8,800. As a result, 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel. 60,000. Let both those numbers sink in and do so with the knowledge that the last one is equivalent to the evacuation of over 2 million Americans. 2 million. And now ask yourself the question which answers itself: What would our country do? What would any country do?
After 11 months of restrained response and US facilitated diplomatic efforts, the Israel Defense Forces are now answering that question. That answer looks like the thousands of pagers and beepers which exploded on the bodies of thousands of Hezbollah operatives and leaders. That answer looks like an air strike killing close to 20 of the top leadership of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s elite military body, as they convened to discuss plans for a ground invasion of northern Israel which would put October 7 to shame. And over the last 48 hours or so, that answer looks like strikes on 1,600 Hezbollah targets yesterday alone, many of them embedded in civilian structures, including cruise missiles in home attics. As in Gaza, the IDF has been advance warning to civilians to vacate areas where missiles are stored. Check out the video below of the incredible secondary explosion missile repositories engender when hit.
There will clearly be many, many more strikes to come until Hezbollah leaves southern Lebanon and Israel returns it citizens to the north. In the words of IDF chief of staff, Lt. General, Herzi Halevi, “The price that Hezbollah is paying has increased, our attacks will increase…....We will safely return the residents to their homes, and if Hezbollah has not understood this yet, it will get another blow and another blow — until the organization understands.”
It is important to know that the Israeli public fully understands well the risks and likely costs inherent in Israel militarily ridding southern Lebanon of Hezbollah. Yet from left to right the people of Israel overwhelmingly support aggressive military action as they overwhelmingly understand there is no other choice. And this a public traumatized and exhausted by October 7, over 100 of their fellow citizens still kept in dungeons in Gaza, and the longest war in their nation’s history. In the words of center left oppostiion leader, Yair Lapid, “the time has come.”