Hezbollah’s options to retaliate against Israel
Hezbollah has been prodded to respond to the death of one of its fighters in Syria in what it says was an Israeli airstrike this week.
The terrorist group – which has thousands of fighters, more than 150,000 missiles and controls part of the government of Lebanon – says Ali Kamel Mohsen was killed on July 20. Other members of the group may also have been harmed.
Over the last several days, Hezbollah supporters have put up hundreds of social media posts vowing revenge. This kind of rhetoric of “revenge” is similar to Iran’s claims that it will avenge the death of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani, who the US killed in January.
What we know about Hezbollah is that it is an organization to be taken seriously. When it paints itself into a corner by saying it will respond to the killing any of any of its members, it tends to do something.
However, Hezbollah must weigh this against the regional reality. Israel is far stronger today than on the eve of the 2006 war.
The same Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, gambled in 2006 that Israel would not respond to his attack on a patrol in which Israeli soldiers were killed and bodies kidnapped. He had been watching Israel closely since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and he had also watched how Israel responded to the kidnapping of Gilad Schalit by Hamas in Gaza.
Nasrallah understands that today there are no restraints on Israel’s response to a Hezbollah attack. The White House will give Israel free rein. Israel has a massively powerful and precise arsenal of munitions.
It is under these clouds that Nasrallah and his allies or handlers in Tehran must decide the next move. Israel has sent ground units to the North – Nasrallah knows this as well.
The following are five ways
they could retaliate:
A symbolic attack:
Hezbollah cut three holes in the northern border fence in April, after the group accused Israel of an airstrike on a vehicle containing Hezbollah members near the Lebanese border that month.
The vehicle was on the Syrian side; the Hezbollah members escaped unharmed. Hezbollah sent its operative to cut holes in the fence. It publicized this afterward, filming Israeli activity along the border and bragging about its ability to infiltrate the Jewish state.
The cutting of holes was designed to show that Hezbollah can strike at any place of its choosing. It wanted to show it can approach the fence easily and that it has carved out these avenues of approach while remaining hidden.
This was largely a symbolic threat to test and send a message to Israel. Hezbollah may opt for a similar symbolic attempt this time. Although the group wants to argue that it can retaliate in a kind of “eye for an eye” capacity of killing one for losing one, it may understand that Israel’s response would be decisive after such a bloody attack.
An attack that Hezbollah knows won’t cause too many casualties: