After Tuesday's coordinated explosions of thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives, its leaders understand how penetrable and vulnerable their organization is.
The terror group has fired thousands of rockets and missiles at Israel over the past 11 months, suffered hundreds of dead and wounded and failed in its brazen attempts to harm former senior Israeli defense officials.
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First responders evacuate casualties in Beirut after pager blasts
(Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir)
The simultaneous strike against thousands of terror operatives is a declaration of war on the Iran-backed group, which will certainly seek to retaliate. Some of its senior officials said late Tuesday that they hold Israel responsible for the attack and that retaliation was inevitable.
This would mean an all-out war. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is a large military force with an arsenal of 150,000 precision-guided missiles and rockets, along with a variety of lethal weapons. The reality of a full-scale war with Hezbollah would not be confined to Israel’s north and could result in significant Israeli casualties nationwide.
Such a war would impact Israel's ability to maintain its health and education systems and would have significant economic ramifications.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government must carefully consider its objectives in such a war, what goals are achievable, and whether it would result in the safe return of northern Israel residents to their homes.
The coordinated strike attributed to Israel will not stop Hezbollah's aggression against the north, rather it will escalate the violence. The terror group has no intention of retreating north of the Litani River.
Therefore, Israelis must prepare for days or weeks of escalating violence, which may even lead to a ground incursion into Lebanon while the war in Gaza continues and casualties mount.
On Wednesday, the military reported that three Givati Brigade fighters and a paramedic were killed when a building exploded in Rafah's Tel Sultan neighborhood. Five others were injured, some seriously.
Hezbollah’s retaliation may be delayed while the group assesses the extent of Israel's intelligence breach. If Israel was behind Tuesday’s attack, Hezbollah will seek to understand how Israel penetrated its organization, but a response is certain.
Israeli politics also plays a role, in a way only Netanyahu can orchestrate. It is difficult to believe that just hours before the attack, the prime minister was focused on his plan to can Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with a politician who should know better than to trust Netanyahu's promises.
Gideon Sa'ar, who has been repeatedly deceived and mistreated by Netanyahu, was set to join the coalition, adding four Knesset votes to Netanyahu's bloc in exchange for Gallant's ministerial position. Sa'ar chose to engage in Netanyahu’s politically questionable maneuvering during the war to salvage his career, though there is no doubt that he will eventually be cast aside and humiliated.