How Hezbollah harmed Israel more with much less firepower than Iran? - analysis

• Published date: 18 April 2024
• Author: YONAH JEREMY BOB
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The speed and explosive power of these threats were all significantly superior to the measly two drones and two antitank missiles with which Hezbollah attacked Israel on Wednesday

And yet Iran's 350 advanced attack weapons wounded only one Israeli and Hezbollah's pinprick attack wounded 18, including 14 soldiers.

How was this possible?

A significant piece of the answer is real estate: Iran's aerial threats had to travel around 1500 kilometers, whereas Hezbollah's traveled around three kilometers.

This meant Israel had far more time to track and destroy Iran's threats.

Also, because the threats were fired from so far away and there was more time, Israel's Western allies, plus Jordan, were able to assist in shooting down many threats, with the US alone shooting down around 80.

Iran was also aiming for central strategic air force base locations in Israel's North and South, which are much better defended than nearly any other parts of Israel.

The small Bedouin city in the North has some air defenses, but nothing comparable. It is mostly focused on Iron Dome defenses against typical low-cost Hezbollah rockets.

In contrast, the IDF has known for several months that Iron Dome and other systems are not made to track or shoot down anti-tank missiles fired from very short ranges which fly in a line-drive trajectory, nor are they necessarily adept at shooting down certain kinds of drones launched from short range/

Although IDF officials after its air force bases were first hit by such attacks months ago said they would adopt new tactics, it seems that these tactics are still having limited success.

Probably one of the tactics is simply clearing most of Hezbollah's forces out of southern Lebanon.

But if all Hezbollah needs is one or two soldiers at a time who never left, faded in with the civilian population and who find a way to quickly sneak an anti-tank missile out of hiding and fire it off before they are seen, the IDF has its work cut out for it.

Put differently, Hezbollah used lower tech and found a strategically "unimportant" target where soldiers had gotten lax about their security and struck hard and fast at that weak underbelly.

The IDF must come up with a real answer to this threat in the long-run, and possibly before going into a larger war.

If there is one positive, it is that the Hezbollah threat here is itself limited to around five kilometers into Israel because the anti-tank missiles have an eight-kilometer range and Hezbollah fighters usually are...