It’s hard to believe that it was less than a week ago that Hezbollah’s communications equipment exploded across Lebanon.
The days that followed saw a series of catastrophic setbacks for the formidable Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
With its networks disrupted, its fighters maimed, its leaders killed, and its military infrastructure under constant bombardment, Hezbollah is facing its worst crisis in four decades.
Now Israel’s defense minister says the campaign is “deepening.”
But it is a high-risk strategy, where Hezbollah’s ability to respond cannot be ignored.
Amid continued warnings in northern Israel, Yoav Gallant has called on Israelis to “show calm, discipline and complete obedience to the directives of the Home Front Command.”
We encountered all of them in equal measure when we visited the small community of Givat Avni, a short distance west of Tiberias.
David Yitzhak showed us where a 120mm rocket flew through the roof of his parents’ house on Monday afternoon.
As sirens blared, David dragged his wife and six-year-old daughter into the safe room of the house, seconds before the explosion.
“The distance between life and death is three feet,” David said, pointing to the short distance between the safe room and the hole in his daughter’s bedroom.
He said he feels no hostility towards the people of Lebanon, but he did say that Hezbollah started the war for no reason.
“So now we give back. And it will be okay.”
But Givat Avni is 30 kilometers from the Lebanese border, far from the evacuation zone that authorities established almost a year ago.
An hour later, when we arrived at nearby Kibbutz Lavi, where many families from the north had been evacuated over the past year, sirens sounded again.
Rockets appeared in the sky and as we were led into an underground shelter filled with children and their artwork, we heard a series of deep, resonant booms.
An hour later, more warnings, another safe room, and more explosions at a greater distance.
Hezbollah had been firing rockets further into Israel even before the latest escalation. But now even more of northern Israel is in the firing line.
All this reinforces the sense of urgency that the government wants to take action.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a meeting with defense chiefs that Israel is changing the balance of power in the north.
“We are facing complex times,” he warned.
“We are not waiting for a threat,” he said. “We are anticipating it. Everywhere, in every arena, at every moment. We are eliminating high-ranking officials, eliminating terrorists, eliminating missiles.”
Now that the Israeli army has taken the initiative, it appears determined to keep Hezbollah at bay, hoping to achieve the government’s goal of returning civilians to evacuated homes along the northern border.
On Monday morning, it went a step further, calling on Lebanese villagers to leave areas where they suspected Hezbollah was hiding larger weapons.
Military officials showed journalists a video of an airstrike in which Israel says it destroyed a modified Russian cruise missile hidden in a house.
In another “illustration” we were shown a skeletal 3D model of a village in southern Lebanon, filled with hidden weapons and equipment.
The scale model and instructions for civilians to leave were reminiscent of Israel’s attempts to explain its actions in Gaza.
However, military officials stress that unlike those in Gaza, the warnings do not mean the army plans to intervene in southern Lebanon.
“We are currently focusing only on Israel’s airstrikes,” a senior official said Monday.
For now, it seems, Israel will see what it can achieve from the air. A former commander, speaking on Israel’s Channel 12, said the air force had so far demonstrated only a fraction of its capabilities.
But Israel cannot reach everything from the air, even if fighter jets were to destroy entire villages.
At some point, a ground attack – however limited – seems inevitable.
But would it be wise?
“That is exactly what Hezbollah wants,” Dr. Jacques Neria, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told i24 News.
“The people of southern Lebanon are soldiers of Hezbollah,” he said. “And that is why we will have to fight against a mass that we do not know, under unknown circumstances.”
In his defiant speech last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah challenged Israel to try to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, something the leader of Israel’s Northern Command is reportedly pushing for.
Such an attempt, he said, would have “serious consequences” for Israel.
At this point, there is no sign of a diplomatic turn. US-led efforts to defuse the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah have failed, as have negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages.
The cold military logic – strike and counterattack – seems to have prevailed.
This is not a battle of equals. Israel knows it can defeat Hezbollah.
There is a complete asymmetry in the amount of destruction and suffering that either side can inflict on the other.
But where the conflict will go and how much worse it will get before it is over remains to be seen.
