What would a ground invasion mean for Lebanon and Israel?

The conflict that has been brewing between Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Israel for months, if not years, has been exacerbated by Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.

What was once speculation – and is now fact – is no less shocking: A full-fledged war between Hezbollah and Israel is unfolding.

The last 13 days have seen a dramatic increase in the violence between Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Against a background of air strikes and rocket attacks, the mass assassination campaign by Mossad, using pagers and walkie-talkies against Hezbollah members, killed dozens and injured thousands. A wave of air raids and retaliatory rocket attacks followed.

On September 23, after threatening the population of southern Lebanon to leave immediately or face destruction, Israel launched its biggest air campaign in years. Using the majority of Israel’s air force, more than 1,300 targets were hit all over Lebanon, but mostly in the south. It has been the most intense level of air raids seen in years.

Four days later, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was killed, along with the group of senior commanders he was meeting, when 85 ‘bunker-buster’ bombs were dropped on a southern suburb of Beirut, in a brutal decapitation strike that leveled several buildings in the built-up area.

Despite this, Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and missiles at Israeli targets. An air campaign will not be the solution to Israel’s problems. Hezbollah has prepared for this exact scenario for years and has dispersed its rocket forces all over the country. So what’s the plan?

Four scenarios

Having sent reinforcements to the north, the 98th division of combat-proven airborne troops, as well as activating reservists serving in units belonging to the Northern Command, Israel is sending a signal: It is serious about its intentions in dealing with Hezbollah.

But what does that mean in practical terms? What would victory look like for Israel?

Eradicating Hezbollah? This is highly unlikely. The group is embedded in Lebanese society, especially within the Shia population in the country’s south.

Fighting Hezbollah will only make it stronger as it is impossible to eradicate Hezbollah as an idea.

When Israel announced in 2006 that it would destroy the group, it made Israel look weak as Hezbollah then only needed to survive the conflict to claim it as a victory – a low bar.

A quick raid in force? Again, this is risky. Striking at Hezbollah missile sites and command centres on the ground plays to Hezbollah’s strengths. The group has been training for this eventuality for years. Its fighters have received comprehensive training and may have combat experience from the war in Syria.

Fomenting dissent and a possible civil conflict within Lebanon? An unlikely scenario, this would involve taking advantage – and somehow encouraging – the simmering dissent some sections of Lebanese society feel about Hezbollah, especially after the group helped crack down on demonstrations against the spiralling economic crisis in 2019. The idea would be to keep Hezbollah occupied and focused internally rather than on Israel.

This would be a longer-term strategy, with no guarantee of success and the all-too-real probability that any civil conflict would change in scope and direction, metastasising into something no one could control, least of all Israel.

Creating a buffer zone, and pushing Hezbollah forces away from the border? Possibly, but ultimately a potential disaster.

A buffer zone

It might sound good on paper or in a meeting, but any attempt by Israel to create a buffer zone around the border would, very likely, end badly for them.

To create the buffer, Israel would need to use ground forces to hold the ground. The mountains and rocky terrain make movement difficult and confine tanks and other vehicles to roads, making ambushes by Hezbollah much easier.

In 2006, Hezbollah surprised Israeli forces by effectively ambushing their armoured columns and sniping at Israeli patrols. Israeli army units struggled to fight back, their inexperience often leading to catastrophic mistakes. At least 20 tanks were destroyed or damaged beyond repair in the war as commanders with no combat experience led tank column after tank column into carefully prepared ambushes.

That will not happen this time. Israel has learned from its mistakes; its combat units are battle-hardened, albeit exhausted, after a yearlong rolling urban battle with Hamas fighters. Internally, the Israeli army is outspoken and relatively quick to voice and rectify mistakes in doctrine. Their army will not make the same mistake twice.

But Hezbollah has been learning, too, and has greatly added to its force. In 2006, there were about 5,000 fighters in the south. That number has now grown to about 20,000 to 30,000, with thousands more in reserve. Their special forces unit, the Radwan Force, has 3,000 soldiers who are trained specifically to operate in the south and know it like the back of their hand.

Both sides use technology, namely surveillance drones, to track the opposition. Hezbollah has a large arsenal of sophisticated antitank weapons like the Kornet missile, which has been proven to be effective against Israel’s Merkava tanks.

Any buffer zone means Israel has to keep troops in the buffer zone, in fortified positions, along with aggressive patrolling, surveillance and air power. Any ground forces would be constant targets for roadside bombs, snipers, ambushes and rocket strikes. There would be a stream of body bags returning to Israel for as long as Israeli forces remained.

Even if that scenario happened, it would still not stop Hezbollah rockets, missiles and drones from being launched into Israel. Israeli military planners could increase the depth of the buffer zone. However, Hezbollah has a big enough arsenal to fire missiles from anywhere in Lebanon and could still hit targets deep inside Israel.

The larger the size of the territory taken, the more Lebanese people would fall under Israeli occupation.

As the rocket attacks would carry on from parts of Lebanon still not controlled by Israel, an ever-expanding buffer zone would have practical limits at some stage or they would be forced into the unlikely position of having to take over the entire country or withdraw.

There is a real danger of “mission creep”, where a simple goal – in this case, creating a buffer zone – sounds simple to do but is impossible to achieve. This would drag the Israeli military into a long-term quagmire its finances can ill afford, a disaster waiting to happen.

At what point does Israel realise there may not be a military solution to this impasse and that negotiations on Gaza are the answer?