Hizballah's Risky Gamble

Last Monday, Nov. 21 at just before 15:00 hours local time, Hizballah launched the biggest and fiercest attack that it has ever carried out against Israel's northern border.

According to DebkaFile's military sources, 500 shells and rockets were fired in five hours, at the rate of 100 per hour against military and civilian targets. The main objective of the plan though was to try to kidnap Israeli soldiers and/or civilians and to display them at Lebanon's independence day parade which was this past Tuesday, Nov. 22nd.

While Hizballah for years claimed that it was simply a national liberation movement aimed at driving Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon, its justification for still possessing arms now are a little less convincing after Ehud Barak made good on his pledge to withdraw Israeli troops back to the international border. While Lebanon claims that the Sheba farms region, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 still belongs to Lebanon, the United Nation agreed that Israel has in fact withdrew its troops to the international border with Lebanon and that the future of Sheba farms should be negotiated with Syria.

This week's past offensive however had nothing to do with Israel or the Sheba farms and had everything to do with internal Lebanese and Hizballah politics. Hizballah hoped to achieve a few main goals. The main goal was against the anti-Syrian Lebanese government led by Fouad Siniora. The fact that a militia could operate so freely and carry out such brazen violations against a neighboring country independently of the Lebanese government would be a huge embarrassment to the government. He and his government would be dismissed by the Lebanese people and the Arab world as nonentities and this would significantly derail the inquiry of the Hariri murder which depends on the Lebanese government's cooperation. It would also take the increasingly unbearable international pressure and spotlight off of the Assad government in Syria and perhaps teach a lesson to any future Lebanese government that would pressure Hizballah to disarm.

Israeli intelligence had picked up communication and gotten word of Hizballah's plans and therefore had publicly increased its warnings to all residents and soldiers along the northern border as early as 2 weeks ago and even sent its information to the government in Beirut which was impotent to stop Hizballah.

Hizballah's plan was to assemble a special kidnapping team on motorbike that would ride into the village of Ghajar and kidnap an Israeli soldier dead or alive. Haaretz describes the village of Ghajar as follows:

When Israel left Lebanon, it scrupulously withdrew exactly to the international border. That border, however, runs right through Ghajar. The result is that the village has become both a major security breach in Israel's northern border and a conduit for drug smuggling from Lebanon into Israel. In an effort to cope with these problems, the Israel Defense Forces built a fence around the Israeli side of the village, set up army outposts and maintains a massive troop presence there. (More information on the unique situation of this village can be found here)

Due to Israeli intelligence warnings, the IDF was ready for the offensive and as such had left its usual outpost empty. When Hizballah saw this they started to head to the entrance to the village while shooting in all directions only to be ambushed by an IDF ambush squad who had been stationed there waiting for the gunmen. Four of them were shot dead.

In response, Israel ordered airstrikes against Hizballah positions in Southern Lebanon and also added in a bit of psychological warfare. They dropped leaflets from planes and helicopters in southern Lebanon printed in Arabic that read:

"O citizens of Lebanon
Who is 'protecting Lebanon'?
Who is lying to you?
Who sends yours sons into a battle for which they are not prepared?
Who wishes for the return of ruin and destruction?
Hizb Allah brings on the worst kind of damage.
Who are the tools in the hands of the Syrians and Iranians?
The state of Israel is awake, watching over the protection of its citizens and sovereignty.
The State of Israel"

Hizballah had its last chance to salvage its plan when Adam Wexler an Israeli civilian paraglider went paragliding at Tzuk Manara, a regular paragliding site near Kibbutz Manara. The site is located not far from the Lebanese border, and there were very strong easterly winds yesterday. Kibbutz Manara members saw him get blown just across the border into Lebanese territory and alerted the army. Galilee Division commander Gal Hirsch ordered a Golani unit to get him out at all costs. The soldiers cut through the border fence as three armed Hezbollah men raced forward to snatch him. The soldiers started exchanging gunfire with Hizballah to provide cover for the paraglider who just managed to escape the kidnappers by mere seconds. Wechsler found the police waiting to arrest him on the charge of bringing lives in danger by a reckless escapade that could have re-ignited a highly sensitive border.

The latest round of clashes initiated by Hizballah even earned condemnation by the UN Security Council which expressed "deep concern" over Hezbollah's "acts of hatred" and urged the Lebanese government to impose order in southern Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah from operating there. Both Hizballah and the Lebanese government made formal requests to Israel for a ceasefire to which Israel agreed only after it was sure that Hizballah had ceased it's offensive.