The writing was on the wall, but few took it seriously over the last 11 months because the wall has also been full of so many unfulfilled threats.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – especially Gallant – have threatened massive action against Hezbollah, often warning about sending Lebanon back to the Stone Age, a favorite metaphor, if Hezbollah did not end its unprovoked post-October 7 attacks on Israel.
Yet the attacks continued. Not only did they continue, but they accelerated and intensified, and the 60,000 people displaced from their homes in the North for nearly a year have lived with no certainty about when, or even if, they would be able to return home.
Until this week.
On Sunday, at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu declared about the situation in the North: “The current situation will not continue. This requires a change in the balance of forces on our northern border. We will do whatever is necessary to return our residents securely to their homes.”
This elicited the usual yawns because that type of rhetoric – about how the situation along the Lebanese border is unsustainable and needs to change – has been heard innumerable times.
The skepticism intensified as this statement came during a political crisis, with speculation swirling that Netanyahu would replace Gallant, whom he does not trust, with United Right chairman Gideon Sa’ar, another figure he distrusts, perhaps even more so.
Does replacing an experienced defense minister with someone with no experience in that sphere seem like the kind of move to expect when the government vows to “do whatever is necessary to return our residents securely to their homes?”
The next day, even as the Gallant-Sa’ar saga intensified, the security cabinet met and updated the country’s war aims. No longer are the aims “only” to destroy Hamas, return the hostages, and ensure that the Gaza Strip no longer poses a threat to Israel, but now they include returning the displaced civilians securely to their homes.
That was the writing on the wall, writing easily ignored, however, amid all the unrealized threats in the past and the intensified political machinations that made it seem Netanyahu and the government were focusing on everything but fundamentally changing the situation in the North.
Hezbollah beeper explosions change everything
Then Hezbollah’s beepers exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon, followed by rigged walkie-talkies blowing up at the same time of day on Wednesday, and everything changed.
Suddenly, Lebanon/Hezbollah seemed in the midst of a modern-day 10-plague scenario, each plague more severe than the last.
“Stop the rocket fire,” Israel warned Hezbollah, “or you will suffer.” Hezbollah did not stop firing, so their pagers exploded.
Still, there was no stop to the rockets, so the punishment escalated to exploding walkie-talkies, which are bigger and capable of causing more damage. All this created panic, chaos, and uncertainty inside Hezbollah and Lebanon, and a fear of what the next “plague” would be – what form it would take.
All of this proved that the updated war goals were not an empty declaration but a government mission statement that would be acted upon and acted upon immediately.
WHEN THE pagers exploded on Tuesday, many thought it was a preamble to a broader military action, perhaps an invasion of southern Lebanon or a massive air attack to take out Hezbollah’s mammoth missile and drone arsenal.
When that attack did not materialize, some lamented a missed opportunity.
Then Wednesday rolled along with the exploding walkie-talkies, and it became clear that this was part of a planned escalation that was in the works for years. Perhaps there was no missed opportunity here but, rather, a well-thought-out escalation of force designed to bring Hezbollah’s capitulation.
According to foreign reports, the booby-trapped beepers were built by a fake company set up by Israel precisely for this purpose: to sell rigged communications devices to Hezbollah.
That fits in with a Mossad modus operandi seen in the past: straw companies established in the early years of this century to sell defective parts for centrifuges to Iran so that when they spin those centrifuges to enrich uranium, those centrifuges explode.
This type of preparation is ample evidence that, for years, Israel and its intelligence services have been preparing in detail for a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, all the way down to building a company abroad that manufactures beepers that explode on cue.
The intricacy of the planning, the utter brilliance of the maneuver, and the specificity of the intelligence needed to carry it out just show what the IDF and Mossad – if they are the ones behind the attacks in Lebanon, something Israel has not taken responsibility for – are capable of.
All of which makes the intelligence and operational failures of October 7 all the more unfathomable.
If the country could show such brilliance in one arena – Lebanon – how was it so blind in another, Gaza?
The answer: Because it was looking at Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Iran; because it viewed that theater as the country’s main threat; because it planned for a time when those threats would materialize; because it focused on the north for years.
By contrast, it did not focus on the south. It did not focus on Gaza and Hamas and did not view Hamas as an existential threat, but instead as a nuisance that could be dealt with through smaller operations every few years.
It took Hezbollah’s threats very seriously and planned accordingly, less so the threats from Hamas and Gaza.
The height of this week’s successes in Lebanon only highlights the depth of the failures of October 7. Yet the colossal shortcomings of October 7 make the jaw-dropping successes this week in Lebanon even more significant.
Why? Because they show to Israelis – wracked by self-doubts following the collapse on October 7 and the country’s inability, up until now, to free all of the hostages – that the country still has “it,” that it still retains unparalleled intelligence and operational capabilities.
More importantly, it shows Israel’s enemies, allies, and potential allies in the region that the country retains unparalleled intelligence and operational capabilities. This is an important message to send to enemies to rebuild deterrence.
But it is an equally important message to send to allies, such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan – and potential allies in the region, like Saudi Arabia – that it is still worth being Israel’s friend or normalizing relations with the Jewish state, because its capabilities remain strong and are unmatched in the region.
IT TOOK 11 months, but this week marked a shift in the country’s approach to Lebanon, or – as Gallant said on Wednesday – “We are at the start of a new phase in this war. It will require courage, determination, and perseverance.”
This shift is driven by the results of Hezbollah’s 11-month barrage: 60,000 displaced civilians, numerous Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Hezbollah fire, and the entire North, from the Kinneret upward, living under the cloud of rocket, missile, and drone fire – just as the communities near the Gaza border lived for years under the shadow of Hamas rockets.
The shift in the North follows concrete results from the Hezbollah barrages and demonstrates the country’s readiness to respond to clear and immediate consequences.
But this approach raises a difficult question: What should Israel do when the threat is evident, but the damage hasn’t yet materialized?
This dilemma is especially relevant regarding how Israel should respond to attacks by the Houthis, a dilemma that came into sharp focus this week.
The dramatic week that passed did not start with action in the north but rather with a message from the Houthis in Yemen in the form of a ballistic missile packed with explosives that penetrated Israel, fragmented in midair, and landed in a field 6 kilometers from Ben-Gurion Airport, miraculously causing only minor damage.
Netanyahu addressed the missile attack soon after it occurred: “They should know that we exact a high price for any attempt to attack us,” he said of the Houthis. “Whoever needs a reminder of this is invited to visit the port of Hodeidah.”
Hodeidah is the port in Yemen that Israel attacked in July after a Houthi drone killed Yevgeny Ferder in Tel Aviv.
The Houthi threat
The Houthis had been pinpricking Israel since October 7, sending over missiles and drones every once in a while and essentially having successfully closed Eilat Port with their targeting of shipping in the Red Sea. Nevertheless, Israel reacted with great force only after someone was killed.
This underlines a dilemma the country faces: When to respond? Should it respond according to the result of an attack, meaning that since the Houthi attack failed to cause the mass casualty event that they intended, Israel’s response should be muted?
Or should Israel respond per the intention? The Houthis intended to kill dozens, if not hundreds, of people, so Israel’s response should be in line with the intent.
For years, Israel’s response generally followed the consequences, not the intent.
For instance, if, in the past, a rocket fired from Gaza landed and caused damage, Israel responded with various degrees of severity. If it landed without damage, however, it was often overlooked.
In hindsight, that policy appears to have been mistaken. Had Israel acted against Hamas after each attack, regardless of whether it “succeeded” or not, the terrorist organization would have been unable to grow to the monstrous proportions that enabled it to carry out the barbaric attack on October 7.
The same is true of Hezbollah. Israel, for various reasons, disregarded an attempt by Hezbollah to carry out an attack in Israel that went awry at the Megiddo junction in March 2023, and also did not respond to what was revealed this week as an effort last September to blow up former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon on a morning run in Hayarkon Park.
On Sunday, the Houthis tried to inflict major damage on the Jewish state. Israel, understandably, is now focused on the North and Gaza and not keen on a full-blown confrontation with the Houthis as well.
Nevertheless, the account with the Houthis is open, and the country will ignore it – as history has proven with both Hamas and Hezbollah – at its own peril.