The cost of potential war with Hezbollah
"War is bad news, and the ceasefire terms that are now being negotiated are bad news," says Alma Centre founder and former IDF Intelligence Sarit Zehavi.
If any other state was being attacked the way Israel’s north is by Hezbollah, it would be considered “a declaration of war, and it would be completely legitimate” to destroy the threat, Israeli analyst Sarit Zehavi told The AJN this week.
With skirmishes escalating along the border with Lebanon, The AJN asked the Alma Centre founder and former IDF Intelligence officer the likelihood of full-scale war breaking out.
“We have drones that are crossing every day from Lebanon … some of them are crashing on our bases and communities, killing soldiers and injuring civilians. We have rockets that caused fires all over the Galilee,” she said.
“And everybody is talking about when Israel will initiate the war. The war was already initiated by Hezbollah.”
Zehavi said she believed Israel “is trying to get a ceasefire in a diplomatic way”, but even if international mediators could get the Shiite terror group to agree, “I believe that Israel will agree to terms that I think are not good enough.
“War is bad news, and the ceasefire terms that are now being negotiated are bad news,” she said.
And while she said Hezbollah and Iran’s strategy “is to try to drag us to a full-scale war … I personally think that we can do more militarily below the threshold”.
“There are more operational targets of Hezbollah that could be attacked … We should dictate the agenda and the targets, and not Hezbollah,” she said.
A full-scale war would cause significant damage on both sides, she said.
“It means that we’re going to have in Israel around 4000 rockets a day. Iron Dome will not be able to intercept all of them,” she said.
“Hezbollah has thousands of drones and accurate missiles … war is not going to be walk in the park.”
With the group hiding all its munitions under homes in Lebanon and using occupants as human shields, she said there may be “huge destruction” in towns there.
“This is where the missiles that are being launched at us are hidden … every third home in South Lebanon is used for military purposes,” she said.
But she said Hezbollah cannot be left to its devices.
“Twelve hundred Israelis were killed on October 7, and we know Hezbollah has the same capabilities, and Hezbollah is willing to do the same thing,” she said.
“It’s Hamas that replicated the offensive plan of Hezbollah, not vice versa. And if we will leave it intact, one day it will do it and this day is not that far. And that’s why we have to make sure that it is incapable of doing so.”
A resident of the north herself, Zehavi said, “We feel that uncertainty is the only certain thing in our life.”
Sixty thousand Israelis have already been displaced from their homes within five kilometres of the border since October.
“From five kilometres onwards, most people stayed, but we are affected by the sounds of war,” she said. “We hear the blasts, we hear the interceptions, we hear the jets, we hear the drones. Our children are affected. Life completely changed.”
Zehavi also had strong words for the Australian government, which has largely failed to condemn Hezbollah’s attacks.
“When you are trying to appease a terrorist organisation, you’re going to get terror at your home. It’s very simple, and it’s already there,” she said.
“We published about memorial ceremonies in a mosque in Sydney to commemorate terrorists of Hezbollah that were killed in Lebanon in the current campaign.
“This is against Australian law. They designated Hezbollah fully as a terrorist organisation. You designated Hezbollah fully, so act against it.”
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