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I wish I talked more about Hezbollah’s ground success last night on Map Check but it was still so blurry and there was much to talk about. Hezbollah is not doing what I had anticipated and drawing in the IDF to fight in the valleys and villages. They are…

A follow up on Louis’ salient analysis of Hezbollah’s prospective performance within the context of an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Expanding a bit on the historical assertions and tying in the IDFs performance in Gaza to what we can expect in Lebanon:

Israel’s north and Lebanon’s south are demarcated, more or less, along the Sykes-Picot lines with exception of Sheba’ farms being occupied by Israel.

They are geographically and historically contiguous, as the Hula valley (formerly lake) of the Galilee in northern Israel is directly connected to Lebanon’s Hula, forming a greater Galilee/Tiberius region. They historically constituted a single region before the creation of “Greater Lebanon” in 1920.

The landscape in both regions is hilly and rocky, thus making vehicle traversal more difficult, but it is also more sparsely populated given that it’s mostly rural; this presents unique challenges and differences from what we’ve seen by the IDF in Gaza.

Gaza is within what is known as the “Sahel” (سهل) region of Palestine and its geography is characterized by extremely flat terrain making it suitable for orchard farming and urban development, as opposed to the hilly Galilee and West Bank. This also would have made land maneuver in Gaza quite easy if it were not for the density of the Strip and the sheer destruction of Israel’s campaign.

Israel’s ground tactics in Gaza broadly occur within three contexts:

1. After a campaign of heavy bombardment, heavily armored troop carriers (Nimr) and tanks (Merkava) attempt to isolate and close in on an area.

2. Armored Israeli bulldozers (D9) attempt to fortify a position and quickly sculpt the landscape given the malleability of the terrain.

3. Drones and other aerial tech, scope out buildings and often engage with Hamas fighters remotely to avoid troop casualties.

In Lebanon, these tactics break down given the size, nature of the terrain, and the sparseness of Lebanon’s south.

Three major obstacles are evident:

1. The rocky landscape of southern Lebanon will hinder IDF attempts at fortifying positions and certainly cannot be done in as quick a time as was done in Gaza.

2. Isolating a region would leave you vulnerable to attack given the openness of the region.

3. AI analysis and drone technology aren’t as useful in non-urban environments given the lack of organized topographical features that AI models would use as data for making strike assessments (in Gaza, blocks and districts can and have been sectioned off and often receive their own designations by the Israeli military).

Now adding the fact that Lebanon is not blockaded on all 4 sides by Israel and Hezbollah has complete access to the Syrian border, they can replenish both arms and men, thus preventing Israel from forcing a war of attrition, as was done in Gaza.

With this in mind, it is difficult to envision Israel’s transgression in Lebanon turning out as anything but a complete failure.

NIGR Gamers Lounge

I wish I talked more about Hezbollah’s ground success last night on Map Check but it was still so blurry and there was much to talk about.

Hezbollah is not doing what I had anticipated and drawing in the IDF to fight in the valleys and villages. They are…

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