The war in Lebanon is asymmetric — Israel's winning from above, as Hezbollah makes a major strategic mistake below
Hezbollah's strategic mistake
This time Israel has not fallen into the trap of a ground war set by Hezbollah Fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is much more difficult than fighting Hamas in Gaza still "undefeated" "unconquered" ONE year on
Hezbollah has made a major strategic mistake assuming that Israel would do the same thing again — send large numbers of ground troops into southern Lebanon to try to destroy Hezbollah missile launching pads, weapons storage facilities and tunnels
The death of eight Israeli soldiers last week highlighted again that fighting Hezbollah with ground troops on their terms is a losing proposition for Israel
Hezbollah has a military advantage in guerilla warfare in southern Lebanon which is why Israeli soldiers are making only short-term incursions into Lebanon
It appears the Israeli soldiers are engaging in multi-pronged attacks: 1. firstly, they make aerial attacks on an area they want to push into, then pound the area with artillery 2. the combination of these two, forces Hezbollah fighters to retreat from the area 3. then once Hezbollah fighters have left in the face of this aerial assault, Israeli ground troops move into the area 4. then IDF try to find and destroy what their intelligence has indicated are Hezbollah weapons storages and tunnels 5. once they have destroyed these weapons, the Israeli army are quickly retreating to Israel 6. thus minimising their exposure to Hezbollah attacks and ambushes
No defence against Israel's drones
Along with this rapid incursion approach, Israel is using one of its clear advantages: complete aerial dominance
Hezbollah has no air capability — it has no jets, few land-to-air missiles to shoot down Israeli jets and no apparent weapons to shoot down Israeli drones
Right now, Israel is using drones to destroy the leadership of Hezbollah. They have killed as many as 25 of Hezbollah's senior command
All of this has wreaked chaos on Hezbollah: To begin with, Israel's use of explosive devices in pagers killed some of Hezbollah's senior command This has made it almost impossible for Hezbollah's military command to communicate
Now, Israel is picking off one Hezbollah leader or weapons facility, after another At nights here, you hear the constant low-level hum of drones
Sometimes, when it appears two or three drones hover over a target, the sound reaches a crescendo That usually means that Israel has decided on a target — a massive explosion often follows
Against this, Hezbollah has no defence It is unable to shoot down any of these drones which are therefore presenting a round-the-clock threat
