Hezbollah and Israel fight on the border as the Lebanese army looks on from the side Foreign Defense Security News

But with an aging arsenal and lack of air defense, and plagued by a five-year economic crisis, the national army is ill-equipped to defend Lebanon against airstrikes or ground attacks by a well-equipped modern army like Israel's.

Militarily, the army is in the shadow of Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has around 80,000 soldiers, including around 5,000 deployed in the south. According to the late leader of the militant group, Hassan Nasrullah, Hezbollah has over 100,000 fighters. Its arsenal, built with the help of Iran, is also more advanced.

Cautious initial reaction

Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been clashing since October 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets across the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza.

In recent weeks, Israel has carried out a major aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a ground offensive aimed at pushing Hezbollah off the border and allowing the return of displaced residents of northern Israel.

As Israeli troops launched their first attack across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese troops withdrew from observation posts along the border and retreated about 5 kilometers (3 mi).

So far, Israeli forces have not advanced that far. The only direct clashes between the two national armies occurred on October 3, when Israeli tank fire hit Lebanese army positions in the Binte Jebel area, killing one soldier, and an airstrike in the same area on Friday killed two soldiers. . The Lebanese army stated that it returned fire on both occasions.

The Lebanese Army declined to comment on how the Lebanese Army would react if Israeli ground forces advanced further.

Analysts familiar with army operations said that if Israeli incursions reach current army positions, fighting Lebanese troops will be limited.

The army's natural and automatic mission is to defend Lebanon against any army that may enter Lebanese territory, said former Lebanese Army general Hassan Zouni. Israelis must defend themselves if the enemy enters, but within the limits of available options, without resorting to recklessness or suicide.

The Israeli and Lebanese armies are completely exaggerated

The current Israeli invasion of Lebanon is the fourth in the last 50 years in the neighboring country. The Lebanese army has similarly played a peripheral role in most previous attacks.

Aram Nerguizian, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that in 1972 Israel tried to create a 20-kilometer (12-mile) buffer zone to push back Palestine Liberation Organization fighters. .

Nerguizian said that during this time, the Lebanese army successfully slowed down the Israeli advance and gave political leaders in Beirut time for the international community to intervene to pressure Israel to demand a ceasefire.

However, Lebanon's internal situation and army strength deteriorated with the outbreak of a 15-year civil war in 1975, during which both Israeli and Syrian forces occupied parts of the country.

Hezbollah was the only group allowed to keep weapons after the civil war, which ended in 2000, for the stated purpose of opposing Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

By 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war, the Lebanese army had not invested in any real-world post-war modernization, was unable to intercept Israeli air power,” and was completely exposed, Nerguizian said. several times (Lebanese army) and Israeli forces were engaged militarily, there was total superiority.

International aid has been a mixed blessing

After the outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria in 2011 and the rise of the Islamic State militant group there, the Lebanese army saw a new influx of military aid. In 2017, it successfully fought IS on the border with Lebanon, although Hezbollah was not alone and at the same time attacked this group on the other side of the border.

When Lebanon's financial system and currency collapsed in 2019, the army suffered. It had no budget to purchase weapons and maintain existing stocks, vehicles and aircraft. A soldier's salary is now about $220 a month, and many are resorting to second jobs. At one point, both the United States and Qatar provided monthly subsidies for soldiers' salaries.

Before the crisis, the United States was the main source of funding for the Lebanese army. According to the State Department, which in a statement said it has provided nearly $3 billion in military aid to Lebanon since 2006 and will strengthen Lebanon's sovereignty by securing its borders. Internal threats and objects disrupting terrorist activities.

President Joe Biden's administration has also touted Lebanon's army as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, hoping that the increased deployment of its forces will displace Hezbollah in the border area.

But this support has its limits. Aid to the Lebanese army has been politically controversial at times in the United States, with some lawmakers arguing that it could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, although there is no such evidence.

In Lebanon, many believe this has prevented the U.S. military from obtaining more advanced weapons that could defend it against Israel, America's most powerful ally in the region, which has received at least $17.9 billion in military aid annually since the war. Gaza has begun.

“My personal opinion is that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) army to have advanced air defense equipment and this issue has to do with Israel,” said Walid Aoun, a retired Lebanese army general and military analyst.

Narguizian argues that this is not a perception of a conspiracy or a half-truth, “noting that the United States has created a legal requirement to support Israel's qualitative military advantage over all other militaries in the region.