Does the Occupying Entity’s Army Hold the Key to Shifting the Ground Equation?

October 21, 2024

Nasser Kandil

• For twenty-one days, the occupying entity’s army has been conducting its ground operation against the resistance in southern Lebanon, announcing it as a “limited” operation. Leaked information suggested a planned incursion no deeper than three kilometres under the pretext of creating a buffer zone to prevent the resistance from operating along the border. The army claimed this was to stop the construction of tunnels and future infiltration attempts, fearing a scenario akin to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation of October 7, 2023, in Gaza. The ultimate goal was to leverage this limited presence to negotiate the withdrawal of the resistance and its weapons beyond the Litani River, under the guise of reducing the threat to settlements in northern occupied Palestine.

• However, Israel’s claims have convinced no one, for several glaring reasons. Firstly, establishing control over a strip of land several kilometres deep is not merely a “presence” – it is occupation. The resistance will not cease fighting, and no one can demand it stops as long as it is capable, especially since even those Lebanese who disagree with the resistance recognize its right to fight when any part of Lebanon is under occupation. The resistance’s arms are legitimised by this mission, and Resolution 1701, which Lebanon firmly upholds, mandates the withdrawal of the occupation forces to Lebanon’s internationally recognized borders. In the current international climate, the occupying entity will find no opportunity to amend Resolution 1701 through backdoor arrangements at the UN, bypassing Lebanon’s stance.

• The second reason for the hollowness of Israel’s narrative is that the resistance’s missiles and drones, as demonstrated in this war, can strike deep within the occupying entity’s territory from well beyond the Litani River – indeed, from much farther than that. Moreover, any negotiations to push the resistance back, which failed in the 2006 July War, would require Israel to achieve a victory it was unable to secure back then. As long as the resistance continues to fight along the border to prevent any form of occupation in that region, the occupying forces would have to use sheer force to stabilise the area and initiate negotiations to expand the buffer zone. This means nothing short of a full-scale invasion, reaching at least up to the Litani River.

• The third reason to doubt Israel’s leadership and military claims is the sheer scale of the forces mobilised for what they described as a “limited” operation. The number of divisions deployed is greater than in the 2006 war, whose goal was to crush the resistance, and matches the scale of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. This overwhelming force, including six divisions and nearly 90,000 soldiers and officers, featuring all elite brigades, makes it clear that the talk of a “limited” operation was merely a ploy to calm international opinion, which cannot support a large-scale invasion, and to avoid provoking Lebanon’s political scene. The real aim was to hedge against failure by claiming the operation was always intended to be limited.

• Now, three weeks into the operation, the occupying army has faced dozens of failed attempts to breach various strategic axes, particularly the high ridges that serve as critical footholds for a ground invasion. These failures have cost Israel hundreds of soldiers, both dead and wounded, along with dozens of military vehicles, including around 25 Merkava tanks. The fiercest battles have taken place around the Ramia-Ayta ash-Sha’b-Qouzah triangle. The occupying army now finds itself questioning the feasibility of achieving victory through this ground campaign and confronting the dilemma of either persisting with these failed attempts or admitting defeat. This is particularly pressing after the resistance delivered a crippling blow to the Golani Brigade by targeting its rear command centre in the Binyamina base with a precision drone strike that struck the dining hall, inflicting nearly 100 casualties. This came on the heels of similar losses during the battle in the Qouzah-Ramia-Ayta ash-Sha’b triangle, which also saw heavy casualties among Golani forces. During the first ten days of the confrontation, the elite Egoz unit – considered the crème de la crème of the Golani Brigade – suffered twice as many casualties, both dead and wounded, in its failed infiltration attempts into Maroun al-Ras, Adaisseh, Kafr Kila, and Yaroun.

• The occupying army has reached a decisive moment in its ground war. While it may attempt additional breaches in the coming days, the likely outcome will mirror the failures of the past weeks. The army’s leadership must now choose between two paths: either halt the ground operation, thereby admitting a failure greater than just the ground campaign itself, since this operation was a response to the failure of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah and its leadership, which were unsuccessful in stopping rocket fire on northern Palestine; or escalate to a broader ground offensive, risking massive losses in troops and armour. The latter scenario, transitioning from point attacks and infiltration attempts to frontal assaults, as seen in the Ramia-Qouzah-Ayta ash-Sha’b triangle, has already demonstrated the heavy costs involved.

• Attempts to mask the failure of the ground operation with intensified bombardments may buy the occupying entity a few hours, but the pressing questions about the operation’s fate will soon return. The missiles and drones continue to reach deep into Israeli territory, and with each successful strike, the settlers’ sense of insecurity grows, along with the number of those fleeing – people the ground operation was supposedly designed to bring back. Similarly, the illusion of distracting from the crisis by accelerating aggression toward Iran is fraught with uncertainty, as neither its success nor the ability to manage its consequences is guaranteed. This diversionary tactic may shift attention away from the ground operation’s predicament for a short while, but soon the question will resurface: does the occupying entity have a solution to turn its ground campaign from failure to success, and navigate its way out of this bitter quagmire of impossible choices?