Hezbollah and Israel Fight on Border as Lebanese Army Watches Outside Foreign Defense Security News

But with an aging arsenal and no air defenses, and shaken by five years of economic crisis, the national army is ill-equipped to defend Lebanon against airstrikes or ground attacks by a modern, well-equipped army like Israel's.

The army is overshadowed militarily by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has around 80,000 soldiers, including around 5,000 deployed in the south. Hezbollah has more than 100,000 fighters, according to the militant group's late leader, Hassan Nasrullah. Its arsenal, built with Iranian help, is also more advanced.

A cautious initial response

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 away from the border and allowing displaced residents of northern Israel to return.

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

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

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

Analysts familiar with army operations said that if Israeli incursions reached the army's current positions, the fighting that Lebanese troops would do would 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. The Israelites must defend themselves if the enemy enters, but within the available capabilities, without resorting to recklessness or suicide.

The Israeli and Lebanese armies are completely defeated

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

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

During that time, Nerguizian said, the Lebanese army successfully slowed the Israeli advance and bought time for the political leadership in Beirut to intervene through the international community to pressure Israel for a ceasefire.

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

Hezbollah was the only group allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war that ended in 2000 with the stated purpose of resisting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.

In 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel were engaged in a month-long war, the Lebanese army had not invested in any real-world post-war modernization, had no ability to intercept Israeli airpower, and was completely exposed, Nerguizian said. . Only a few times (the Lebanese army) and Israeli forces were involved militarily, there was a complete overmatch.

International aid has been a mixed blessing

Following the outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria in 2011 and the rise of the Islamic State militant group in the country, the Lebanese army saw a new influx of military aid. It successfully fought IS on the border with Lebanon in 2017, although Hezbollah was not alone and simultaneously attacked the group across the border.

When Lebanon's financial system and currency collapsed in 2019, the army took a hit. It had no budget to purchase weapons and maintain existing supplies, vehicles and aircraft. A soldier's salary is now about $220 a month, and many resort 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 financier of the Lebanese army. It has provided nearly $3 billion in military aid since 2006, according to the State Department, which said in a statement that it aims to allow the Lebanese military to be a stabilizing force against regional threats and strengthen Lebanon's sovereignty by protecting its borders. . Insider threats and terrorist disruption of facilities.

President Joe Biden's administration has also praised Lebanon's military as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, hoping that a greater deployment of its forces would replace Hezbollah in the border area.

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

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

It is my personal opinion that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) army to have advanced air defense equipment and this issue is related to Israel, said Walid Aoun, a retired Lebanese army general and military analyst.

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