Israel against Hizbollah: Between Overt and Covert Warfare
INSS Insight No. 668, March 2, 2015
David Siman-Tov , Yoram Schweitzer .

SUMMARY: The violent battle between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon and
Syria, and perhaps even outside the Middle East, can be expected to continue
and perhaps escalate in the coming year, given the attempts by Syria and
Iran to expand their areas of influence in southern Syria and the Syrian
Golan Heights. The declaration by Revolutionary Guards officials that Iran
will respond to an Israeli operation might translate not only into Iranian
support for Hizbollah operations, but also attempts to carry out terrorist
attacks abroad, since there is full coordination between Iran and Hizbollah.
Israel’s goal, which at this stage is apparently the goal of Hizbollah and
Iran as well, is to conduct the struggle for influence without being dragged
into a war. This article discusses Israel’s methods for confronting
Hizbollah, and examines how the strategy chosen by Israel to confront the
challenge on the northern front affects the Hizbollah response.
.

Topics:

Israel , Hizbollah
.


January 2015 noted two events connected to the Mughniyeh family. One, for
which Israel is believed responsible, was the assassination on the Golan
Heights of Jihad Mughniyeh and senior Hizbollah and Iranian operatives,
including an Iranian general from the Revolutionary Guards. The other was
the publication of an article in the Washington Post asserting that the
United States and Israel had cooperated in assassinating Imad Mughniyeh, the
head of Hizbollah’s military wing and father of Jihad.

This article discusses Israel’s methods for confronting Hizbollah, which is
supported by Iran. It also examines how the strategy chosen by Israel to
confront the challenge on the northern front affects the Hizbollah response.

According to published reports, the purpose of the attack in the Golan
Heights was to strike a severe blow against the terror infrastructure
established in the Golan by Hizbollah in coordination with the Revolutionary
Guards and already in advanced stages. The force attacked was among the
organizers of this infrastructure. Foreign sources claimed that Israel was
responsible for the action, and UN personnel testified that they saw Israeli
drones circling in the area of the attack. In response to the action, a
number of shells were fired from Syrian territory toward Mount Dov. This led
to an Israeli response against Syrian army troops, which were still in the
Golan Heights. However, the more significant Hizbollah response, which came
several days later, comprised the anti-tank missiles fired at an IDF convoy
on Mount Dov, on the Israeli-Lebanese border, killing two Israeli soldiers
and wounding seven. Despite the attack, Israel chose to exercise restraint,
and Hizbollah relayed messages through UNIFIL that it viewed the incident as
closed.

The 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh was a different kind of action.
Mughniyeh was believed responsible for a number of major attacks against the
United States in Lebanon: attacks on the US embassy in Beirut and a Marine
compound, airplane hijackings, and the taking of civilian hostages. He was
also thought to be responsible for attacks against Israeli and Jewish
targets in Argentina and the Hizbollah force buildup following the Second
Lebanon War. According to recent reports, he was assassinated after lengthy
surveillance by a joint CIA-Mossad operation. Hizbollah’s leaders have
repeatedly declared that his death would lead to a painful response against
Israel. However, this threat has not been carried out, and a number of
attempts to strike at Israeli diplomatic missions and representatives abroad
have failed. The one exception was the terrorist attack in Burgas, Bulgaria
in 2012. The courtroom revelation that Hizbollah was directly responsible
for the attack led the European Union to include the group’s military wing
in its list of terrorist organizations.

The manner in which both the older and younger Mugniyeh were attacked
highlights various Israeli strategies for confronting terrorist
organizations. In the recent Golan Heights attack, an aerial strike was
carried out almost openly, a method used when a concrete threat to Israel is
identified or when Israel is interested in sending a message to the other
side, even if Israel does not take official responsibility for the attack.
The second method is to strike the terror infrastructures and terrorist
leaders covertly, without leaving Israeli fingerprints. Such covert activity
enables Israel and its adversary to deny the attack or to respond in limited
fashion – if at all – in order to prevent escalation. It also prevents an
inevitable stigma that the attacked side is the weaker party.

And indeed, in recent years Hizbollah, Syria, and even Iran have exploited
the deniability option in order not to respond directly to operations for
which Israel was believed responsible. These have included signature
attacks, primarily on Syrian territory, to prevent the transfer of advanced
weaponry from Syria to Hizbollah, for which no clear proof of responsibility
was discovered. In contrast, the overt targeted killing in the Golan Heights
made it difficult for Hizbollah to take advantage of deniability and
“forced” it to respond in order to restore its deterrent image, even if
there was a risk of a flare-up. It therefore responded in a manner that from
its point of view was legitimate because it was similar to the method used
in the attack (a missile for a missile, a patrol for a patrol) and because
it took place in an area that is relatively convenient for Hizbollah, where
it has a territorial claim against Israel. With its response, the
organization sought to send a message that in the future, it would respond
to an Israeli attack against it even in Syrian territory, including attacks
on convoys transferring weapons. Had it chosen another extreme response such
as an attack abroad, it would have risked a strong reaction and even
sanctions by the international community, especially by European countries,
which since the incident in Burgas have had less tolerance for Hizbollah’s
operations or for any terrorist attack on European soil.

It is still too early to assess the effect of the operation against the
establishment of a Hizbollah infrastructure in the Golan Heights: Will it
delay the opening of an active Iranian-Hizbollah front against Israel on the
Golan Heights? Alternatively, will it spur the completion and activation of
the infrastructure, as could be implied by the start of the “battle to
restore the Golan Heights,” which began recently with the participation of
Hizbollah forces, the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and
the Syrian army, and which is even named for the twelve casualties of the
Israeli attack. Note that despite the de facto decision by Hizbollah and
Israel to end the violent interchange following the attack on the Golan
Heights and Hizbollah’s counter-response, it is impossible to say whether
Iran, with or without Hizbollah, will respond in the future, as
Revolutionary Guards officials have threatened, in order to force Israel to
pay a heavy price. In any case, it appears that in the confrontation with
Hizbollah and Iran on the northern front, it is preferable, to the extent
possible, to adopt the low signature covert warfare approach. This is
because it allows both room to maneuver and deniability for both parties and
thus minimizes the risk of escalation to the point of a war that neither
party wants.

The violent battle between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and
perhaps even outside the Middle East, can be expected to continue and
perhaps escalate in the coming year, given the attempts by Syria and Iran to
expand their areas of influence in southern Syria and the Syrian Golan
Heights. The declaration by Revolutionary Guards officials that Iran will
respond to an Israeli operation might translate not only into Iranian
support for Hizbollah operations, but also attempts to carry out terrorist
attacks abroad, since there is full coordination between Iran and Hizbollah.
Israel’s goal, which at this stage is apparently the goal of Hizbollah and
Iran as well, is to conduct the struggle for influence without being dragged
into a war. For its part, the Iran-Hizbollah axis fears an Israeli operation
against the Assad regime, which might bring about its fall. In addition, in
their view, another war between Israel and Hizbollah could be devastating
for Lebanon, after Hizbollah was able to expand its influence over the
Lebanese government’s foreign and defense policy and restore its standing as
the defender of Lebanon. Israel too prefers to keep its distance from the
turmoil in the region and avoid a situation that deteriorates into a war
against Hizbollah in Lebanon. Therefore, calming and control mechanisms
should be created, with the involvement of Western and Arab mediators, to
assist in moderating the responses in the event of mutual attacks and more
than usual tension, and to stop the slide into a war that neither side
desires.