Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (10)

This series of articles aims to shed light on the current situation through the lens of history, setting aside passionate, ideological, or romanticized narratives that miss the mark on reality, and leaving readers to draw their own conclusions.

The previous nine installments offered a reexamination of events surrounding Hezbollah's rise to power, from the Taif Agreement through Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the establishment of a Hezbollah-controlled zone in the South, and the 2006 war. This article addresses the lessons of the 2006 war and its aftermath.

In the operation "Truthful Promise" (el-Wa3ed el-Sadek, the name given to the July 2006 war), Hezbollah employed tactics rooted in hybrid asymmetric warfare, skillfully combining traditional guerrilla techniques, the heavy use of cutting-edge dual-purpose anti-tank missiles, and defense in depth across the entire area south of the Litani River and parts of its northern bank.

Central to this strategy was the so-called "nature reserves" tactic — an intricate network of tunnels and buried bunkers designed to remain invisible in the face of Israeli air superiority, while enabling ambushes. This defensive approach was modeled on the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army during their war with the United States (1964–1973), when American forces enjoyed undisputed air supremacy.

The pro-Iranian group demonstrated exceptional proficiency with fourth-generation anti-tank missiles, as outlined previously. At the same time, it sustained relentless harassment of northern Israel, which remained paralyzed throughout the war by daily Katyusha rocket fire — approximately 4,000 rockets in total, averaging 100 to 120 per day — launched from concealed mobile platforms. Furthermore, the militia's fighters had no need for logistical supply lines, as weapons, ammunition, food, and survival supplies had been stockpiled in underground depots over six years, and the war lasted only 33 days.

Finally, Hezbollah waged an aggressive media war: the Al-Manar channel broadcast Hassan Nasrallah's speeches, which served as a psychological weapon to galvanize his supporters and erode Israeli public morale. In this regard, and as a telling example, on July 14, 2006, Hezbollah fighters struck an Israeli corvette off the coast of Beirut using a Chinese-made C802 Silkworm precision anti-ship missile supplied by Iran, catching Israeli intelligence completely off guard.

The strike killed four sailors. The incident was a major tactical shock: the ship's automated defense systems had not been activated, as the command had deemed the threat of anti-ship missiles nonexistent. In a live radio address, Hassan Nasrallah invited Lebanese citizens to look out to sea and watch the vessel burn — a moment that proved to be a decisive turning point in the psychological warfare of the conflict.

Summary of Israeli tactics

The Israeli military, for its part, adopted a strategy centered on air superiority, the high technology of the era, and precision operations. However, it showed considerable hesitation when it came to launching a large-scale ground offensive, seemingly intent on replicating the model of the Second Gulf War in 1991, when US-led coalition forces conducted a prolonged air campaign before advancing on the ground in Operation Desert Storm. Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, himself a fighter pilot, failed to adapt his strategy to the new realities on the Lebanese ground imposed by Hezbollah.

The Israeli air force managed to destroy almost all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles (Fajr and Zelzal) within the first hours of the conflict, along with a large number of missile launching pads, Hezbollah command posts, and ammunition depots. It also succeeded in isolating southern Lebanon by destroying strategic bridges and roads. Finally, there were successful deep commando raids, such as the one in Baalbek, where an Israeli special forces unit took control of a hospital on August 2, 2006, killing 10 Hezbollah fighters and 6 civilians and capturing several civilians who were later released.

On the ground operations front, the advance toward the Litani River was only partially achieved. Elite troops managed to break through but were never able to establish effective control over the southern bank of the river before the ceasefire came into effect on August 14. The inability of infantry and armored units to secure the terrain against anti-tank missiles and to halt rocket fire on northern Israel represented the primary strategic failure.

The army's equipment losses, aside from the Merkava tanks and the damaged naval vessel, included one helicopter shot down by an anti-tank missile, two others damaged in a collision, and several drones. This war marked the end of the military career of Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, who today (2026) is a fierce opponent of Netanyahu and frequently takes to the streets at the head of protests against the Prime Minister.

The 33-Day War: Aftermath

On the Lebanese side, the death toll is estimated at 1,100 civilians, 43 Lebanese soldiers and police officers—though they were not combatants—5 UN soldiers, between 250 and 600 Hezbollah fighters, 31 Hezbollah-allied militiamen, and 52 foreign civilians.

On the Israeli side, 165 people were killed, including 119 soldiers. Lebanese material losses amounted to 30,000 residential units totally or partially destroyed in southern Lebanon and in Beirut's southern suburbs, in addition to bridges, roads, and infrastructure; overall damages were estimated at between 5 and 7 billion dollars. The number of people displaced to Beirut and Mount Lebanon reached nearly 685,000, while 200,000 fled to Syria, and between 300,000 and 500,000 people were displaced from northern Israel.

End of the Conflict: Resolution 1701

The conflict ended on August 14, 2006, following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Israel at that point occupied a buffer zone approximately 10 to 30 kilometers deep from the Blue Line. As soon as the ceasefire was announced, and despite the destroyed roads, displaced residents returned en masse to their villages in the South. This was the fourth return of displaced persons to southern Lebanon—brought about not by the liberation of territory by force, but by international pressure, which Iran and Hezbollah have always relied upon, as in 1993, 1996, and 2000, with that pressure aimed at stabilizing the Middle East through arrangements that have invariably proven temporary.

Resolution 1701 sought to establish a 'security zone' in southern Lebanon, between the Blue Line and the Litani River (located approximately 30 km to the north). However, its implementation was selective and incomplete, which led to the situation that prevails today. For the first time in nearly thirty years, the Lebanese army deployed 15,000 soldiers along the southern border, asserting the principle of state authority—in contrast to the rhetoric of then-President Emile Lahoud, who had consistently refused to deploy the army in the south in order to leave the region under Hezbollah's control.

Also in accordance with Resolution 1701, the Israeli army withdrew from the areas it had occupied during the ground offensive, and UNIFIL was massively reinforced, growing from 3,000 to nearly 10,000 peacekeepers with an expanded mandate to monitor the cessation of hostilities and assist the Lebanese army in implementing Resolution 1701. Yet none of this came to pass in the 17 years that followed…

Resolution 1701 stipulated that no armed group, other than the Lebanese army and UNIFIL, should be present between the Litani River and the border. However, the dominant factions within the Lebanese government chose submission, lacking any strategic vision and failing to capitalize on international pressure.

Hezbollah, in collusion with them, agreed to pull back its uniformed fighters and visible heavy weapons, but maintained a complete covert presence. It rebuilt its network of tunnels and underground bunkers, and massively reconstituted and modernized its arsenal — including tens of thousands of rockets — right under UNIFIL's nose, through Syria, which served as a land bridge between Lebanon and Iran.

Israel, for its part, continued to violate Lebanese airspace on a daily basis, arguing that this was necessary to monitor Hezbollah's activities in the absence of any real enforcement of the demilitarization provisions.

Resolution 1701 succeeded in maintaining relative stability and preventing all-out war for 17 years (until October 2023), but it never resolved the underlying issue of Hezbollah's military presence in southern Lebanon.

Read more on this topic:

Hezbollah-Israel: An Endless War in Whose Interests? (9)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (8)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (7)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (6)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (5)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (4)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (3)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (2)

Hezbollah-Israel, an endless war serving whose interests? (1)