2006 - Hezbollah-Israel war

DUBAI: Israel’s war against Lebanon in 2006 was not its first, but it was the fiercest and most devastating to the Lebanese people and state to that point, resulting in severe damage to civilian infrastructure and shattering many vital sectors.

On July 12, 2006, in an attempt to put pressure on Israel to release Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, Hezbollah ambushed an Israeli army convoy patrolling the border, killing eight soldiers and capturing two, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Another unit fired rockets at Israeli military positions and border villages.

The next day, Israel responded with large-scale attacks on Lebanon by air, sea and land, fulfilling a pledge by Israeli army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz that “if the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years.”

The conflict continued for 34 days, during which nearly 1,200 Lebanese were killed, more than 4,000 injured and about a million displaced, according to government figures. It destroyed nearly 30,000 homes and a large number of the country’s power stations, water and sewage networks, electrical facilities and telecommunications infrastructure. Key civilian infrastructure, including Beirut International Airport, bridges, roads, and public and private buildings were bombed.

The war, which cost Lebanon more than $15 billion in economic losses, exacerbated unemployment and poverty levels, further escalating a socioeconomic crisis in the country.

Another significant consequence of the conflict was the environmental devastation it caused. Israeli airstrikes targeted the Jiyeh power plant, south of Beirut, which caused more than 15,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean Sea, triggering an ecological catastrophe that severely affected marine life and other aspects of the coastal environment.

In the view of critics and analysts, the surprise attack by Iran-backed Hezbollah did not justify the disproportionate scale of the 2006 war, which ended on Aug. 14, three days after the UN adopted Security Council Resolution 1701. Later that month, the head of Hezbollah at the time, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, admitted he would not have ordered the capture of Israeli soldiers had he known it would trigger a war on this scale.

“We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude,” Nasrallah said during an interview with Lebanon’s New TV.

“You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.”

Resolution 1701 called for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, and for Hezbollah to move to areas north of the Litani River, leaving the south of the country exclusively under the control of the Lebanese military and 15,000 UN peacekeepers, who would help maintain calm and ensure displaced residents could return home.

Israeli authorities ended their 2006 war in Lebanon but the consequences at home continued. The government faced public outrage and harsh criticism, from politicians and the press, over its handling of the conflict. It responded by appointing a commission of inquiry to assess the military operations. In 2008, the Winograd Commission published a damning report that accused Israeli authorities of “grave failings” at the political and military levels.

A ground invasion, launched in the final days of the war, failed to achieve its objectives: it did not succeed in disarming Hezbollah, nor did it secure the release of the soldiers held by Hezbollah. It later emerged that Goldwasser and Regev were dead. Their remains were eventually returned in 2008, in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of about 200 Arabs.

In addition, Israel’s defense systems, including its Iron Dome air-defense shield, had proven incapable of protecting the north of the country. Hezbollah demonstrated the reach of its missile arsenal, striking at targets deep into Israeli territory, including Nahariya, Haifa and central regions, further exposing the weak defense strategy.

The losses Israel sustained during the war fueled and intensified the criticism: 127 soldiers and 43 civilians were killed by Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel, and hundreds were wounded. Almost 300,000 people, mostly in northern Israel, were forced to flee their homes, sparking widespread panic.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s power had grown, both in terms of its arsenal of weapons and as a political force in Lebanon.

In their study titled “The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy,” authors Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey Friedman concluded that Hezbollah, a non-state actor, had waged a state-like conventional war by employing a hybrid strategy that blended conventional military tactics with guerrilla warfare.

“Hezbollah did some things well, such as its use of cover and concealment, its preparation of fighting positions, its fire discipline and mortar marksmanship, and its coordination of direct fire support,” they said in the 2008 study.

However, they noted that the militant group “fell far short of contemporary Western standards in controlling large-scale maneuver, integrating movement and indirect fire support, combining multiple combat arms, reacting flexibly to changing conditions, and small-arms marksmanship.”

Overall, the 2006 conflict weakened neither the weaponry nor the resolve of Hezbollah.

In summing up the shortcomings of the Israeli campaign, the Winograd Commission stated: “When the strongest military in the Middle East embarked to fight the Hezbollah and does not clearly defeat it, this had far-reaching adverse consequences for Israel’s status.”

As Hezbollah’s influence grew in the aftermath of the 2006 war, with the support of Iran and Syria, Lebanon was left to grapple with a deeply divided political system and sectarian strife, compounded by a collapsing economy and wider regional, geopolitical hostilities.

While the UN Resolution 1701 brought relative calm, its terms were never fully enforced, in particular a call for Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw to north of the Litani River. These demands were renewed, nearly two decades later, as part of a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah last year, with the aim of preventing future hostilities.

The group’s recent pummeling by Israel, the assassination of Nasrallah, and the toppling of its Syrian-regime ally, Bashar Assad, have shifted the power dynamics, leading to Hezbollah’s declining influence.

The election of Joseph Aoun, a neutral army commander, as president on Jan. 9, after two years of a power vacuum in the office, and the formation of a new government have reignited hopes for a united Lebanon and a resolution to the long-standing conflict with Israel.

• Sherouk Zakaria is a UAE-based journalist at Arab News, with more than a decade of experience in media and strategic communication.