WHAT DID ISRAEL WANT?

Analysis – the Polyblog editors.

Widespread speculation that Israel was blowing up Hezbollah’s telecommunication systems as a prelude to an imminent ground operation gained traction following the first round of Israel’s major tech attack on the afternoon of September 17. Lebanese state officials warned of an inbound Israeli ground op at a time Hezbollah was at its most vulnerable state.

As the night passed without a grand follow-up escalation, the prospects of a much-feared ground invasion waned. If Israel’s objective from disabling Hezbollah’s communication and coordination was to lay the grounds for an invasion in south Lebanon, it would have done so the night of the attack, taking advantage of a precious element of surprise.

So, if not as a pre-invasion measure, how can we understand the tech attacks of September 17 & 18?

On September 16, the Israeli security cabinet held an unusual overnight meeting, and announced that it was expanding its war plans to achieve a new war objective: the return of some 65,000 internally displaced residents to northern Israel. While this goal has been a political necessity for the Netanyahu government since October, adding it to Israel’s military list of objectives signaled that a “fundamental change in the security arrangement in the north”, as Netanyahu calls it, was imminent.

Less than 24 hours later, we saw what that escalation looked like. Thousands of hand-held communication devices of all sorts, used by Hezbollah’s middle management and senior members, simultaneously detonated across Lebanon, instantly taking thousands of Hezbollah’s operational personnel out of service and causing medium to critical injuries within thousands of the group’s ranks. Hospitals were immediately overwhelmed as the group struggled to understand what had just hit it. It was an unprecedented and unthinkable operation, and it immediately changed the course of the war.

Hezbollah and Iran had maintained the upper hand for much of the 11 months stretch of this current war, setting the pace for Israel while carefully managing the war’s outcomes through diplomatic negotiations and on the battlefield.

But on the last eve of July, something major happened. Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, in an apartment building in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Somehow, Israel had managed to get to Hezbollah’s most secretive individual and kill him inside the group’s most guarded stronghold, after infiltrating Shukr’s phone network and instructing him to move from his office on the second floor to his home on the seventh, where the drone missile was guaranteed to kill him with minimal collateral.

Hours later, the Israelis followed up with something even more audacious. By assassinating Hamas’s political chief inside his room in Tehran – a room within a security complex guarded by the IRGC – Israel again demonstrated its superior maneuvering abilities. The bold move flipped the table on months of Iranian build-up of leverage and put Iran and its proxies back on the defensive.

For the Israelis, the war with Hezbollah can only end with a security arrangement that guarantees the return and safety of its residents in the North, which months of shuttle diplomacy had failed to reach. Despite taking major hits and losing deterrence vis-à-vis Israel, Hezbollah’s maintained position of refusing to negotiate a deal before a ceasefire in Gaza could be reached remained unchanged.

The technological and intelligence superiority Israel secretly held over the axis had become visible ever since the precision in assassinating Hamas’ politburo member Saleh al-Arouri in a Hezbollah stronghold on Jan. 2, and became increasingly clear following a series of high-value attacks on Iranian proxies’ most guarded and secretive assets across Iran, Lebanon and Syria.

But the tech attacks in September exposed a previously unknown extent of Israel’s infiltration of Hezbollah’s command, supply chain, and cyber security.

Hezbollah’s failure to secure its logistics and crucial supply chains resulted in astronomical cost for thousands of its middle management members and sent the group down the rabbit hole of internal mistrust and plummeting morale. “With just the push of a button” Hezbollah stood paralyzed from shock in the face of Israel’s hybrid intelligence.

The long-term impact of this operation is profound. Close to 3,500 injuries have been reported in the span of hours. Due to the nature of these devices’ utility, many of those injuries have resulted in amputated limbs and loss of sight. There are also 300 severely injured cases in critical conditions. Short-term damage aside, the heaviest toll lies in the burden Hezbollah will suffer as a result of the medical, financial and psychological strain of caring for thousands of its own members living with long-term crippling disabilities.

But in terms of leverage and negotiations for a post-war settlement, Hezbollah now finds itself in a very undesirable position. By exposing the group’s profound weaknesses and failures, Israel seriously weakens Hezbollah’s position at any negotiation table, and by extension, it strips Iran of its perceived security leverage that it hopes to cash out on at the end of this war.

What we have to observe now is whether Hezbollah and Iran can find a way to regain lost deterrence and return to the pre-July status quo without triggering a devastating war, or if despite the bluster, Hezbollah will recognize its proven inability to remain committed to its current negotiating position and concedes to the deal it has been refusing for months.

Israel is rapidly burning through every option to force Hezbollah into a deal and settle its northern front. The clock is ticking and the escalation ladder has little steps left to climb. If and when these options are unsuccessfully exhausted, Lebanon may be facing one of two prospects: a full-scale war that involves an Israeli invasion of south Lebanon which aims to create a prolonged security buffer similar to pre-2000 withdrawal, or a long-term campaign which involves constant bombardment of Hezbollah’s security assets, preventing the group from rebuilding its power projection capabilities to pre-October 2023 levels.