15 years later
his week marks the 15th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War.
If we didn’t need any more evidence that there’s still a belligerent force facing Israel from north of the Lebanese border, Hezbollah released a reminder on Tuesday.
The terrorist organization, which has held Lebanon hostage for decades and holds much of the blame for the country’s current economic and social crises, released a video of the 2006 attack and abduction of IDF soldiers Sgt. Eldad Regev and Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser – the event that sparked the war.
In the video, Hezbollah terrorists are seen crossing into Israel from Lebanon and then firing at an IDF Humvee. The terrorists then run toward the vehicle, removing the bodies of IDF soldiers and carrying them back over the Lebanese border. Seconds later, another terrorist is seen running away from the Humvee carrying an additional body, seconds before an explosion.
The revulsion of seeing the national tragedy replayed and the timing of its release are a sobering reminder of the peril that still confronts Israel from the North, 15 years after the harrowing conflict that still divides Israelis as to what was achieved and at what cost.
During the 34-day war in 2006, 164 Israelis were killed – 119 soldiers and 45 civilians. Approximately 4,000 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel during the fighting.
According to former Meretz leader Zahav Gal-On, writing in Haaretz this week, the Second Lebanon War “has become a symbol of the folly and irresponsibility of the government and army, which dragged the state into a needless war while concealing their failures behind lies.”
On the other hand, those behind the decision to launch the offensive in Lebanon, including then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, staunchly supported the efforts in retrospect.
“It brought about a deterrence that had never previously existed on the Lebanese border,” Olmert said, while Halutz is on record as saying, “The decision to go to war was correct, justified and proper.”
The state-appointed Winograd Commission, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Eliahu Winograd, discovered “grave failings in the decision making... both on the military and political levels” in its final report, which was particularly harsh about the conduct of the ground war in the last few days of the conflict, in which Israel lost many soldiers for questionable gains.
Stopping short of blaming any one individual or institution, the report said, “The ground operations at the end of the war did not bring any clear achievements... or stop the launching of Katyusha rockets. After the decision for a ceasefire there was no intelligent discussion on how to stop the ground war.”
Despite its shortcomings, Israel’s conduct during the war dealt a severe blow to Hezbollah, driving its leader Hassan Nasrallah underground from which he’s rarely emerged since, and creating a relatively quiet border in the North.
That’s not to say that Hezbollah doesn’t still provide a lethal threat to Israel. It has continued to build its arsenal since 2006 and now is estimated to have hundreds of thousands of short-range rockets and several thousand missiles that can reach deeper into Israel.
It is believed that in the next war, the terrorist group will try to fire some 1,500-2,000 rockets per day until the last day of the conflict. Looking back 15 years, the Second Lebanon War wasn’t a knockout for Israel against Hezbollah, nor was it a victory for the terrorists. Rather, like in the conflicts since then with Hamas in Gaza, there is often no longer a clear-cut winner in modern-day warfare.
Some strategic aims are achieved and the gains must be weighed against the sacrifices. Keeping the border quiet, however, is an accomplishment that should not be underestimated.
Whether the war was a victory or a disaster for Israel will continue to be debated for years to come. And those families who lost their sons will continue to mourn.
One thing that will remain the same is that Israel will continue to prepare for the next round of conflict with those that mean her harm, whether it’s Hezbollah or Hamas.