ISRAEL’S NORTHERN BORDER IS HEATING UP

ISRAEL’S NORTHERN BORDER IS HEATING UP

By:  Shalom Bear | Published: October 8th, 2014

Israel northern border is heating up, and the trend is expected to continue, senior IDF officer from the Northern Command warned, according to a Nana10 report.  The officers said there is an increase in the number of incidents along the border, including Hezbollah surveillance as well as openly armed terrorists walking around freely, in direct contravention of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.  Yesterday’s attack that wounded two IDF soldiers was the first time that Hezbollah openly took credit for an attack in a long time.

Hezbollah, an Iranian client, is trying to send a message of deterrence to Israel, that Hezbollah can freely act along Lebanon’s borders against Israel, even as it is busy fighting ISIS in Syria.  Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem said “Israel knows that the opposition [Hezbollah] is alert and will respond to any action at the appropriate time.”  Hezbollah knows that Israel doesn’t want to have a war so soon after Operation Protective Edge, and is taking advantage of that.  Hezbollah may have up to 100,000 missiles in Lebanon, and has been spending the past few years amassing as many as it can.

The open violations, the attacks and the attitude are indications that any deterrence Israel created in the last war with Hezbollah is quickly wearing off, and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, that Tzipi Livni touted as her great success at the time, has effectively collapsed.  Defense Minister Yaalon said that he is reexamining the civilian security budgets for northern towns. Their budgets were just cut a few days ago, and that may have been premature.  Despite the warning signs, Israel’s defense department is telling Israelis it’s still safe to travel up north during the Sukkot vacation. Tens of thousands of Israelis will be heading north for the holiday vacation.

An attack by Hezbollah on Lebanon's border with Israel which wounded two Israeli soldiers was a message that the group remained ready to confront its old foe despite its engagement in Syria's civil war, the group's deputy leader said.  The soldiers were wounded by a bomb planted by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters in the Shebaa hills, drawing Israeli artillery fire in response. It was the first time Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for an attack against the Israeli army since 2006, when the two sides fought a 33-day war.

"This is a message.. Even though we are busy in Syria and on the eastern front in Lebanon our eyes remain open and our resistance is ready to confront the Israeli enemy," Sheik Naim Qassem told Lebanese OTV television late on Tuesday.  Israel and Lebanon are technically at war but their 80-km (50-mile) border has been largely quiet since the 2006 conflict.

Hezbollah members have been fighting alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war. The move by Hezbollah, which is backed by Shi'ite Iran, has helped turn the tide of the war in Syria against insurgents seeking to oust Assad.  The group said it took the decision to fight in Syria to prevent jihadi fighters, like those from Nusra Front and Islamic State which seized parts of Syria and Iraq, from advancing into Lebanon.  On Sunday, 10 of the group's fighters were killed during a battle with hundreds of Nusra Front militants on the border in eastern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is not interested in a war with Israel, but is striving to achieve a balance of deterrence against it. This is the conclusion from the blast of the two explosive devices on Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) on Tuesday. The devices were laid a while ago, and on Tuesday Hezbollah commanders decided to activate them. Fortunately, only two soldiers were lightly injured, and therefore the IDF’s response was moderate – it fired some 40 shells at two posts belonging to the Lebanese Shi’ite organization.

The response was meant to contain the incident and not deteriorate relations with Hezbollah.  Israel is also not interested in an escalation. But as we’ve seen this summer against Hamas, and in 2006 against Hezbollah, a single incident or a series of violent events that grow out of hand can develop into war. Hezbollah has unresolved issues with Israel. The organization believes that Israel is responsible for the death of Hassan al-Laqis, one of its senior members who was in charge of developing “special devices,” in December 2013 near his home in Beirut.

It also blames Israel for attacking a warehouse and an arms convoy on Lebanese soil in February 2014. A month ago, a Hezbollah fighter who was trying to dismantle an Israeli listening device was killed. In its statement on Tuesday, Hezbollah said that the band that undertook the explosives ambush was named after him.  Hezbollah’s new approach can be defined as “breaking the silence.” The Lebanese organization understands that Israel is taking advantage of the so-called “Arab Spring” to act like the neighborhood bully. In Israel, this activity is called “the war between wars.”

Two days ago, the IDF chief of staff awarded the Shayetet 13 elite naval commando unit a medal for its

secretive operations: 43 operations in the last two years, of which we know about only one. We can assume they were in part intelligence operations.  Israel is especially attributed with taking advantage of the weakness of the Syrian regime, which Iran and Hezbollah have been aiding in the civil war. The air force has attacked advanced weapons convoys on Syrian soil in the past year-and-a-half, especially advanced missiles that were on their way from warehouses in Syria to Hezbollah.  And it outdid itself when it reportedly attacked a warehouse and a weapons convoy on Lebanese soil.

Hezbollah, which sees itself as the defender of the Lebanese nation, has decided to change its approach. It responds to any incident that it views as an Israeli attack on Lebanese sovereignty or as a breach of the rules of the game. And not only does it respond, it usually also takes responsibility. Hezbollah’s responses were also noted on the Golan Heights, where it has operated “envoys,” Syrian mercenaries, this year. Hezbollah is up to its neck in the civil war in Syria, where it sent about 5,000 of its 30,000 fighters. The battle is spilling over from Syria to Lebanon. Hezbollah has suffered, and is suffering, difficult losses in these two fronts. But it hasn’t lost its confidence or its military capabilities.

With the help of its up-to-date weapons, and especially its massive stockpile of up to 100,000 missiles, Hezbollah believes in its ability to challenge Israel, and, if need be, even stand up to it for a long period of time and to wear it out if the situation deteriorates to a war that none of the players in the equation – Israel, Hezbollah, and its patron Iran – wishes for.