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Israel Prepares for Next War with Hizbullah

(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - Four years after the Second Lebanon War, the Israeli army is training intensively in combat tactics suited to Hizbullah's extensive system of bunkers and emplacements in southern Lebanon. The Israeli training site is saturated with false explosive devices and camouflaged emplacements. Success in the next round will require both combing through and taking control of terrain - to whatever extent that time allows - and striking at essential targets of Hizbullah and the Lebanon government. As part of the lessons it learned from the 2006 war, Hizbullah moved its "center of gravity" from nature reserves in open areas to compounds in the heart of villages and forests. Hizbullah assumes that by fighting from within populated areas, it will wear down Israel, which will be apprehensive about killing civilians. Israel, which appears to enjoy high-quality intelligence on events in Lebanon, is collecting information about these "urban reserves" as well. At the same time, the Dahiya doctrine has also been developed, by which the IDF has threatened to respond to rocket fire originating from Shi'ite villages by unleashing a vast destructive operation - as it did against the Dahiya Shi'ite quarter in Beirut in 2006. The Israeli threats and the scars of the war, which Hizbullah feels far more acutely than it would ever publicly admit, are apparently still able to preserve the status quo in the north and thereby avert another war.
2010-07-06 08:20:14
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