Israel's war part 7 - the war against Hezbollah

Part 7 – The war against Hezbollah

It has been just over a month since the IDF began a full-fledged war against Hezbollah. Before analyzing that, it would be useful to see how operations against both Hamas and Hezbollah have taken place compared to what I predicted in previous posts.

Hamas: In my post of 25 Aug I had suggested that the fighting against Hamas was largely over and
Hamas, having lost the bulk of its fighters was incapable of offering organized resistance. I had identified three IDF divisions that would handle Gaza, not by occupying the whole Gaza strip but
by cutting it off from outside support and cutting parts of Gaza from each other, by occupying corridors. The IDF would them conduct air strikes, or limited ground incursions against Hamas fighters, until Hamas’s fighting ability is fully degraded.

As suggested, the 162^nd, 252 and 143^rd Divisions have, since the beginning of Sept, been the only formations operating against Hamas in Gaza. As both the 252^nd and 143^rd are reserve divisions, along with a brigade of the 162nd division, it means that units have to be rotated – reserve formations cannot be mobilized for more than 60 days at a time.  Effectively the IDF has a division equivalent – a combat strength of around 10,000 handling Gaza. These have been supplemented by three other formations – a specialized Multidimensional unit, specializing in urban combat and parts of the 900
brigade and the 460^th Armored brigade (a training formation).

The IDF lost 22 men in July and Aug in the Gaza fighting, though only 11 of them were from contact with Hamas. In Sept and Oct, the IDF similarly lost 24 men (and 1 woman) in Gaza, of which again half were from contact with Hamas, the rest from IEDs or accidents. All IDF deaths were in North Gaza.    

The fighting in Gaza IN Sept & Oct was characterized by the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Along the deaths of the next two leaders, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, were all of Hamas’s politburo and many of the 24 battalion commanders, it has left Hamas leaderless.

This article gives an account of recent fighting in Gaza. What is notable to me is the decrease in Hamas attacks on the IDF, with almost all incidents being those of IED’s – which themselves have
reduced, though IDF units have been penetrating deeper into Gaza.  

https://acleddata.com/2024/10/06/after-a-year-of-war-hamas-is-militarily-weakened-but-far-from-eliminated/

While this article suggests that Hamas can regenerate itself as it has lost 8500 (verified) fighters, against the Israeli claim of 17,000 and its total manpower is 25000- 30000, I have explained in my previous post that these figures can be reconciled. For every fighter dead, one more would be too seriously wounded to fight – this ratio is normally 1 : 2, but I would assume poorer medical facilities in Gaza would result in more fatalities among the wounded. In addition, the figures of dead exclude those killed outside Gaza, those killed after 24^th Sept (the cut off for this article) and unidentified bodies. This would conservatively mean 10,000 killed and a similar number seriously wounded. There would also be prisoners. These totals mean irrecoverable casualties of close to 25000, or 80% of the pre-war Hamas strength. The strength of Hamas’s 24 battalions is about 20,000, with the rest being responsible for support activity who can take up arms if necessary.

As I have posted earlier, this group of marginal fighters can either decide to fight to the death, or melt into the general population.  Given that Hamas’s supplies have been cut off ( tunnels leading into Egypt have been blocked) arms caches depleted or captured, leaders dead and with the IDF having the ability to launch a drone or air strike or shell any position where Hamas fighters are seen,
there is little incentive for them to continue the fight.

My sense is there is more likely to be a hostage deal now, with the remaining Hamas leadership not wanting to lose their only bargaining chip – which is the remaining hostages and with the probability that the incoming US administration will be less supportive of Hamas wanting to continue the fight.

A caveat – the brigades of the 162 Division – in particular its Givati and Nahal infantry brigades and the 401 Armored brigade have been in constant combat for a year (with the loss of 129 men) – even though there has been some rotation among its units. At some point in the near future, they will have to be withdrawn from combat. The same problem is faced with arguably two of Israel’s best formations, the Golani brigade and the 35 Para brigade, which were in the thick of fighting in Gaza and for the past month have bee fighting against Hezbollah. This is the longest any Israeli brigade has bene in combat in Israeli military history.

  As the map shows. Gaza is split in two by the Netzarim corridor and split from Egypt by the 
  Philadelphia corridor. The area in blue is under the control of the IDF, with raids into the 
 `white' areas. Areas in light blue were briefly occupied by the IDF 
 Source: Institute for the study of war. 

The war against Hezbollah: The build-up. 

I have argued earlier in this blog series that Hezbollah’s bluff was largely called. It had been speculated by many analysts – incl. respected ones like Lt Col Scott Ritter, or Col Douglas McGregor
that since Hezbollah was a lot more powerful than in 2006 (when they held Israel to a standstill) Israel would do worse and be in  real trouble if they fight Hezbollah and Hamas at the same time.
In reality Hezbollah had been performing a lot worse than in 2006, even before the events of Sept, when Mossad had redeemed themselves, first with exploding pagers and radios, which had injured over 1000 Hezbollah fighters, culminating in the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

In the 2006 was with Hezbollah, 34 days of fighting saw 44 Israeli civilians killed in rocket attacks, while the Israeli army lost 121 men (most of them in 2 days of fighting). In the current operations,
Hezbollah has a rocket and drone arsenal several times more than in 2006 and a much stronger force defending southern Lebanon. However, Israel lost 41 civilians after over a year of rocket
attacks. While the IDF’s total casualties against Hezbollah since Oct 2023, are 62, 42 of them died
since the start of the ground war compared to 121 in 2006.

The IDF deployed against Hezbollah the same 5 divisions I had speculated would be part of the operation. They are the 36^th Division, the 98^th Para division, the reserve 91^st territorial and 146^th Reserve Divisions, with the 210^th reserve division acting as a reserve.

Apart from the 36^th and 98^th divisions which has been involved in the fighting in Gaza from the beginning, all brigades of the 91^st and 146^th divisions were also rotated through Gaza, which gave their reservists combat experience. All these units were also stationed in their sector of the front for some weeks, before the Israeli offensive, compared to 2006, when reservists were hastily mobilized and thrown into the fighting in a more piecemeal way.

Ground operations: The best summary of the first month’s operations I could find comes from this video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-acMWC16-w

Some points I found significant:

The IDF has advanced at the same rate as the Russian army in Ukraine has in 2024. The Russian rate of advance is much derided despite the fact that unlike Israel, the Russians do not have complete air superiority – Ukraine has a formidable NATO supplied air defence. Unlike Hezbollah, Ukraine has unmatched ISR capability (from a network of satellites) giving Russian forces of any significant size no chance of concealment and Ukraine has its own mechanized forces and artillery.

Russia, since the summer, is also incurring roughly the same number of casualties per brigade per month as Israel (which is a very casualty averse army). This belies the myth of Russian `meat offensives’ or taking positions through human wave tactics. Russian tactics were similar to the video, with small groups of highly mobile forces (light vehicles instead of tanks) advancing after an area is softened by precision air and artillery strikes. 

Israel's 162 Division in North Gaza (against an enemy weakened after a year of fighting) took more casualties in October than any of the five IDF divisions operating against Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

It was estimated before the ground offensive that Hezbollah had an inventory of 100,000 rockets and drones which could be fired at a rate of 1500 per day if Israel started a ground offensive. The actual rate is under 150 per day, vindicating the Israeli estimate that 75% of Hezbollah’s stocks were knocked out in airstrikes, or depleted during the previous year. In the 2006 war Hezbollah fired an average of 120 rockets per day into Israel. 

In 2006, the Israeli Air force (IAF) flew 11600 fighter sorties in 34 days. In the current operation
between 16 Sept and 24 Oct, the IAF flew 3250 fighter sorties. The reduction from 340 sorties per day in 2006 to 83 per day currently, is probably the outcome of more precise targeting (the lethality of 
the ordnance dropped was not very different from 2006). The reduced sortie rate implies the IAF can sustain operations for longer.     

Caches of advanced anti-tank missiles have been recovered from positions Hezbollah has retreated from. Reports say upto 2500 ATGMs and RPGs were recovered. It suggests that either Hezbollah fighters failed to fight to the end (to the last missile), or failed to make an orderly withdrawal to the next position, with their most valuable weapons. I make this point to counter the view that Hezbollah, man for man, is a more formidable adversary than Hamas.

A point made in the video is that there is visual evidence of just 1 Israeli tank being destroyed, against the Hezbollah claim to have destroyed 34. Since the Israeli ground offensive began, the IDF lost 5 men from an armored formation (8 Armored brigade). All were killed when they were hit by a rocket outside their tanks. They also lost 5 men from the 188 Armored brigade, in accidents and attacks on tanks before Sept 24. Even if one can’t match deaths of men in the armored corps with the loss of tanks, a ratio of 1 killed to 1 tank destroyed (based on historical ratios) would be appropriate. Hence the IDF has probably lost 5 tanks in Lebanon so far.  

Before the ground estimate, based on Hezbollah's own casualty estimate, the ratio of IDF to Hezbollah killed was 1 : 26 compared to 1 : 6 in the 2006 war. Hezbollah has stopped publishing casualty figures, but IDF estimates are 1500* Hezbollah and 340 Syrian and Shia militia killed against 62 IDF killed in
Lebanon since Oct 23. Considering only Hezbollah men killed in Lebanon, the loss ratio would be 1:24, which is consistent with losses before the ground offensive. 
* There are also estimates of 2000 Hezbollah killed, I have considered the lower of two estimates, in the absence of a confirmation from Hezbollah.    
  
Iran: The Israeli attacks on Iranian interests which killed Hamas and Hezbollah commanders (including in Tehran) and senior Iranian officials left Iran with no choice but to retaliate. Just like the previous drone attacks on Israel which were ineffective, Iran’s bluff was called again when they attacked with an estimated 200 Ballistic missiles. The best that can be said is that several landed in the area they were intended to (satellite pics show impacts on Israeli Air force bases, but there was
no indication of damage to aircraft or high value assets). When 90% of missiles were intercepted, Iran has a finite stock and they are costly, this is not a sustainable strategy.

 While Israel’s attack also did not have visible damage (though there is some evidence of damage to S-300 Anti-aircraft missile sites) it was claimed that Anti-aircraft and missile production facilities were hit. What I believe should worry Iran was that the Israeli Air force was able to send over 100 aircraft, to attack 20 targets, 1600 km away, with all attacking aircraft returning - albeit without entering Iranian airspace. Parts of the missiles fell in Iraq, from where the long range missiles were launched by the attacking aircraft.     

 The Houthis My view in the previous post was that the Houthi attacks, far from disrupting Western supply chains showed up Iran’s missiles and drones (supplied to the Houthis) as ineffective.  Between May and Aug 2024, of the 82 ships targeted by the Houthis, only one sank. In theory, with
merchant ships being virtually defenseless against modern Anti-ship missiles, the missiles should have been more effective. Between 30 Aug and 30 Oct, the Houthis claimed to have targeted 10 ships. Only 4 of them were actually hit, none seriously and with no loss of life. A typical example was the attack on the tanker Olympic Spirit on 10^th Oct. The Houthis claimed they fired 10 missiles at it. One hit the ship and two exploded nearby. What the Houthis have however achieved is that the Israeli port of Eliat has had to declare bankruptcy (due to lack of business), while the loss to Egypt from drop in Suez canal revenue was US$ 2.2 billion for 2023-24.

Israel's GDP growth for 2024, which was earlier estimated to be 1.5% on the assumption that the 
Gaza war would end by the summer of 2024. This has now been reduced to 0.5% by the Bank of Israel.

Further reading:

Report from the Institute for the study of war:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/hezbollah%E2%80%99s-military-forces-are-failing-lebanon

Analysis of Israel's possible objectives in Lebanon

https://www.inss.org.il/publication/ground-maneuver/

A note on sources:

All data is open source. Israeli casualties are reported after cross checking with two official Israeli web sites. They also provide data on the unit involved, which is also reported by the Israeli media.
I have not seen data that contradicts these figures. 

In forums that I post in, I have been asked who I support in this conflict and about my background.
In my posts on this conflict (and all my blog posts) I avoid politics and try to analyze military and geopolitical strategy based on data. The only country I’d support in a conflict is mine (India). The political aspect has been covered by many people of all persuasions and I have nothing new to add.

I worked in Iran and Turkiye and have done business with Israel and across the Arab world. My experience gave me a more nuanced understanding of the region than `One side good, the other bad’.