Twenty years after the Second Lebanon War, debate is returning within Israel over what the security and political establishment considers a series of failures that allowed Hezbollah’s strength to grow on the northern border, leading to lessons that were not applied until the October 7, 2023 attack.
According to a report by journalist Avi Ashkenazi in the Israeli newspaper “Maariv”, the Second Lebanon War broke out on July 12, 2006, following an attack carried out by Hezbollah on the northern border inside Israeli territory, which, according to the Israeli account, led to the death of 5 soldiers and the injury of 3 others, in addition to the capture of the soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The war lasted 34 days and ended on August 14, 2006, during which the Israeli army launched military operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The writer believes that Israel adopted, for about 18 years after the war, a security policy that he described as “problematic,” considering that the Israeli army repeatedly avoided entering into a confrontation with Hezbollah, even when the party was, as he put it, crossing “red lines” in building its military capabilities and activities against Israel.
The report indicates that the incident of Hezbollah setting up two tents in the Shebaa Farms area during the summer of 2023 was only one of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of incidents that the northern border witnessed during those years.
The writer reviews a series of events that he considers to be essential stations on this path, starting with the January 2015 attack, when a Hezbollah cell fired anti-armor missiles at an Israeli military convoy in the Shebaa Farms area, which led to the killing of Officer Yochai Klangel and Soldier Dor Nini and the wounding of others.
It also stops at the “Northern Shield” operation launched by the Israeli army in December 2018, during which it announced the discovery and neutralization of 6 attack tunnels that Hezbollah said had been dug by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon towards Israeli territory, along the Blue Line.
The report adds that in July 2020, an armed group attempted to infiltrate into Israel in the Shebaa Farms area, but the Israeli army announced that the operation had been thwarted without causing casualties, while Hezbollah, according to the report, in August 2021 fired a salvo of 19 missiles towards open areas inside Israel.
It also refers to the launching of about 34 missiles from Lebanon towards the Western Galilee during Easter in April 2023, an attack for which Israel attributed responsibility to the Hamas movement and Palestinian factions active in Lebanon.
The writer also discusses the infiltration operation that occurred on March 13, 2023 near Kibbutz Hanita, in which he said that the perpetrator arrived at the Megiddo Junction and planted an explosive device that seriously injured an Israeli civilian, before he was later killed during an armed clash while trying to return to Lebanon.
According to the report, during their seventh tour since October 7, the fighters of the 551st Reserve Commando Brigade were able to control the town of Majdal Zoun, destroy what it described as Hezbollah’s “droning airfield,” and kill 80 fighters, in addition to discovering a number of tunnels, including what was called the “airport tunnel,” which extends hundreds of meters, in addition to the recent discovery of two additional tunnels under the town.
The writer also refers to the visit of Israeli media personnel to Beaufort Castle, where the Israeli army displayed part of the tunnels that it says Iran and Hezbollah built in Lebanon, describing them as strategic tunnels prepared to enable the party to attack the Galilee region.
Ashkenazi concludes that Israel, from the end of the Second Lebanon War until October 8, 2023, pursued what he described as an “ostrich policy,” ignoring, in his opinion, the growing power of Hezbollah, which transformed the organization, in his words, from an “organization” into an “army” possessing offensive and maneuvering capabilities.
The writer believes that the same mistake was also repeated in the Gaza Strip after the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014, considering that this policy ended with the attack of October 7, 2023.
The report concludes by asking whether Israel has actually drawn lessons from the Second Lebanon War and the events that followed it, and how it will build its defense doctrine on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, as well as with Egypt and Jordan, to prevent what it describes as the rise of a “terrorist army” on its borders. He also criticizes the Israeli government’s preoccupation, in his opinion, with calculations of political survival and preparing for elections, instead of making strategic decisions related to building military power and formulating a vision for the next day, considering that the real judgment on the lessons learned will not come until after many years.
