Conflict could turn into no-win quagmire in war of attrition

Israel demonstrated its vast superiority in intelligence gathering and technology when it launched devastating attacks on Hezbollah in recent days with airstrikes and remote-control explosions that put the Lebanese militant group on the defensive.

A ground war between the two, if it occurs, would likely be a different story. Hezbollah, which has been regularly striking targets in Israel for close to a year, has kept in reserve a massive arsenal of rockets, drones and anti-tank ­missiles it can deploy to counter Israeli advances.

Among its most dangerous new weapons is an Iranian-made guided anti-tank missile called Almas – the Persian word for diamond – which gives Hezbollah a much higher degree of precision in its strikes than it had when it last fought a war with Israel in 2006.

As in that war, which ended in a stalemate, Israel would have to fight on a battlefield in southern Lebanon that plays to Hezbollah’s strengths. The conflict could turn into a quagmire, much like the war in Gaza. “It’s a little like saying to the US in 1980 ‘Let’s go back into Vietnam’,” said Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and former US government official, who co-wrote a recent study of Hezbollah’s arsenal.

Those with knowledge of Hezbollah say the group accelerated its war preparations in recent months, expanding its network of tunnels in southern Lebanon, repositioning fighters and weapons and smuggling in more arms.

Iran has increased supplies of small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, along with guided and unguided long-range missiles, US and regional officials say.

“The south is like a beehive right now,” said a former Hezbollah military officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to the military preparations.

“Everything the Iranians have, we have.”

The preparations come on top of other advances since 2006, when Hezbollah’s month-long conflict with Israel left 121 Israeli soldiers and more than 40 Israeli civilians dead along with more than 1000 Lebanese people.

Since then, Hezbollah has acquired thousands of new missiles and drones from Iran and attached guidance kits to its older, unguided rockets. Its fighters have been further hardened from combat in the war in neighbouring Syria, where they fought alongside Russian and Iranian forces and learned the battle techniques of conventional armies.

Hezbollah’s upgraded drones successfully struck Israeli military equipment in recent months, including a radar surveillance balloon called Sky Dew in May and a multimillion-dollar anti-drone system called Drone Dome in June. The militant group said on Sunday that it attacked the headquarters of an Israeli defence company near Haifa, Israel’s third largest city. Israel didn’t confirm the target but said the group had struck deeper than usual into ­Israeli territory.

Last November, Russia’s Wagner mercenary group planned to give Hezbollah an advanced SA-22 anti-aircraft system, The Wall Street Journal reported. It isn’t clear whether the system was ­delivered.

Military analysts say Hezbollah could copy tactics used by Russia in Ukraine, launching salvos of missiles and swarms of drones in efforts to overwhelm or disable Israel’s air defences and strike military bases or ports and the country’s electrical grid. Israeli officials anticipate that hundreds of people could be killed.

“It’s not going to be a walk in the park” if there’s a full-scale war, said Assaf Orion, a retired brigadier general from the Israeli military. “There’s no way we’re not getting a bloody nose.”

It is unlikely Hezbollah could overpower Israel or decisively defeat it in a conventional war. Israeli airstrikes since October 7 have taken a toll on Hezbollah’s leadership and likely degraded some of Hezbollah’s military capabilities, including rocket-launching sites and arms stockpiles.

Israel’s overwhelming advantage in surveillance and intelligence operations were on display over the past week as it executed a sophisticated plot in which thousands of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, wounding thousands and killing at least 37 people. An airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday killed a group of Hezbollah’s elite military commanders.

Israel’s military also has far more advanced weaponry, including F-35 jet fighters and multi-­layered air defences. Israel’s air superiority would allow it to unleash devastating airstrikes and cripple Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, as it did in 2006.

Israel nevertheless faces strategic disadvantages. Hezbollah wouldn’t seek to win a war with ­Israel in a conventional sense. Rather, it would aim to mire Israeli forces in a war of attrition, much as Hamas, a smaller, less well-armed group, has survived Israel’s 11-month assault on Gaza.

“Israel can cause destruction in Lebanon, it’s not up for discussion. There is a gap in the military balance,” said Elias Farhat, a retired general from the Lebanese army. “But Hezbollah has asymmetric weapons. They proved their skill in using anti-tank missiles in 2006. They are well-trained.”

Hezbollah is probably the world’s most heavily armed non-state paramilitary force, with tens of thousands of troops and an extensive missile arsenal.

In 2006, Israeli officials estimated Hezbollah had about 12,000 rockets and missiles. Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst with knowledge of Hezbollah, said the group’s stockpile had swelled to 150,000 before October 7, a figure that broadly matches Israeli and Western estimates.

The Almas guided anti-tank missile is widely thought by military analysts to be a reverse-­engineered version of an Israeli missile called the Spike, which was likely captured by Hezbollah and sent to Iran in 2006.

Broadly comparable to other advanced antitank missiles such as the American Javelin, the Almas lets Hezbollah hit targets with more precision.

Summer Said, Anat Peled and Stephen Kalin contributed to this article