Day 357: A brief explainer

Answers to some of your questions on the campaign in Lebanon, on a possible ceasefire and on what the future may bring

[Long post ahead… but felt it necessary to add some clarity on what has been another rollercoaster week.]

After seeing a post from relatives abroad that I love and respect, I wrote the following FAQ. Not as a way of combating misinformation (though there is plenty of that, of course) but as a way of adding context to some of what some of what the newspapers and magazines I read daily, including The New York Times and The New Yorker (and to lesser degree, The Atlantic and Haaretz) often leave out or fail to cover enough— as well as to add some personal context.

Writing this helped me make sense of the past few weeks, so I hope you find it useful, too. Last but not least — I more than welcome additional questions (even if I will certainly not have all the answers.)

1. Is this war with Lebanon new?

   No, it was merely on the back burner. On October 8, the day following the Hamas invasion in the south, Hezbollah — the large terrorist group in Lebanon with direct ties to Teheran — began launching mortars, missiles and killer drones at Israel. The Israeli government evacuated all cities, towns and kibbutzim within 5 Km of the border, fearing not just the aerial threats, but also a Hamas-like ground invasion into Israeli communities. Though it’s not talked about much Hezbollah has a significant network of tunnels in the border, and is significantly better trained and armed than Hamas. And being a fundamentalist Shiite group, their charter is the ultimate destruction of the State of Israel.

   
   Though a lot of the focus was on the evacuees in the Gaza border, over 60 thousand Israelis from the north have also been forced out of their homes. Dozens of civilians have been killed, mostly by direct hits, such as the 12 children killed by a Hezbollah missile in a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdl Shams. Businesses are shut, hundreds of homes and communities destroyed, and a large swath of the forests and fields in the Galilee destroyed by fire.

2. How did Israel act manage this until now?

   Most military activity for the past year was concentrated in Gaza and the bordering communities. Israel moved additional troops to Lebanese border, and engaged in a tit-for-tat strategy that maintained a “balance” of sorts, responding not necessarily according to the quantity of attacks, but usually retaliating according to the damage they caused. At the same time, when the opportunity came, it led broader operations, such as the killing of the Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in late July.

   But week by week, month by month, the situation escalated to the point where there are now hundreds of attacks (and Israeli strikes in Lebanon and other places) on a daily basis.

3. So what happened this time?

   With the war in Gaza winding down, and a hostage deal stuck, and with attacks from Hezbollah escalating and desperation from mayors and other community leaders in the north, two weeks ago, the Israeli government declared that the focus was moving from Gaza to the northern border.

   The first turn of events was the coordinated explosions of Hezbollah communication devices (attributed to Israel, but for which nobody has formally taken responsibility,) some ten days ago. In the days that followed, the Israeli Air Force killed a large number of the Hezbollah’s top commanders. Last Monday, Israel launched the largest attack on Lebanese soil since the 2006 war, destroying thousands of missiles, warehouses and other Hezbollah infrastructure hidden inside Shiite towns in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa valley (not before giving a three-hour warning for civilians to evacuate.) Israeli news sites were full of footage of traffic jams in a 6-lane highways (including a southbound lane filled with cars going north) of Lebanese families escaping towards Beirut.

   No less importantly, military officials have openly discussed a possible ground operation. At the same time, as of yesterday morning, there are reports of a possible three week pause in the fighting to negotiate a ceasefire.

4. What areas of Israel are under attack?

   Well, it depends on the day (or the hour.) A drone from Yemen exploded in Eilat yesterday. On Wednesday, a cruise missile from Lebanon (launched at 6:29 am on the Muslim calendar’s anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks) was launched towards Tel Aviv, driving over a million people to seek shelter in the coastal plain, from Binyamina and Natanya in the north, to Tel Aviv in the south. And last night, my city joined a few other hundred thousand Israelis running to the shelter in the middle of the night (thank you Houthi rebels for launching a cruise missile from 2 thousand kilometers away… or rather, thank you to the engineers that designed the Arrow 3 Missile defense system that allowed us to eventually go back to sleep, unharmed.)

   But the most intense attacks are certainly in the north, with Hezbollah (and occasionally, Shiite militias in Iraq) firing hundreds of shorter-range rockets, missiles and drones every single day into cities and towns within 100 Km of the border, including Haifa, Akko, Nayariya, Safed, the communities around the Kinneret, Yokneam and the rest of the Lower Galilee, as well as the Upper Galilee and the Golan Heights.

   That said, in between sirens and newscasts, there is “regular” life. This morning we left the house before 6 am for the annual “Selichot in the Park” event where we sang popular liturgical songs towards the Jewish New Year along a few thousand fellow of our neighbors, (especially sixth-graders and their parents for whom this event is part of local school calendar.) And later this morning, at the local farmer’s market, the popular children’s song “Ba Shanah Ha Ba’ah” was blaring from the speakers.

   Parallel lives indeed.

   

   Sunrise selichot at the park, some five hours after the siren

5. So are people functioning?

   If you define “functioning” as in going to work or school? Yes, so long as it’s not in the area directly under constant attack, where schools are closed and work is permitted only if one can reach a shelter in the time allotted, and gatherings are limited to 100 people indoors, and 10 outdoors. Haifa, the third-largest city in Israel, and where I lived and went to graduate school after arriving in Israel, is one of those places.

   If you define functioning as living a “normal life,” then, not so much. There’s been a 40% increase nationwide in people calling emergency mental health hotlines in the past few weeks. And those thinking of going away are now paying pay four or five times the regular airfare, with most foreign airlines (again) cancelling flights and leaving El Al as the only “certain” option — but good luck finding a ticket that is not Business Class.

   Even the most quotidian interaction can soon become a conversation that borders on the absurd. Today, as I was paying for a box of Medjool dates at the farmers’ market, a guy in a motorcycle jacket started talking to me as he approached the stand. “Get another box!” he said. “I can guarantee that this guy sells the sweetest and freshest dates from the entire Jordan River Valley!” Then he turned to talk to the farmer, and both men embraced. “Yeah, I just came back from the north. You have no idea what’s going on. Kibbutz Manara? Forget it. It’s basically ceased to exist.” I stood there as the motorcyclist told the farmer of how his life was spared at the last minute when he was instructed to take cover from an incoming Hezbollah drone, which exploded seconds after he reached the shelter.

   I left them alone to chat, but before going to the car, I went back to buy another box of dates.

   

   Arriving at the farmer’s market this morning

6. There’s constant news coverage of destroyed homes and of funerals in Lebanon. How do you feel about that?

   This is certainly an asymmetrical war. It’s one of large terrorist organization, backed by Iran, against a sovereign country with a strong air force and strong civilian defense systems. The fact that (knock on wood) we haven’t yet heard of Israeli casualties (if one doesn’t count the driver of the car that was killed in a crash upon hearing the air raid siren,) it’s certainly not because Hezbollah hasn’t tried. It’s because of the investment in defense technologies like Iron Dome …and frankly, because we’ve been extremely lucky. To have a few dozen injured, most from falls on the way to the shelter (though some serious wounds from shrapnel or explosions) but no dead, in days with heavy barrages of of 30-40 rockets at a time, and after a week with more than one thousand rockets, missiles and drones launched at large swaths of the population— is nothing short of miraculous.

   And nobody is blind to the fact that there are Lebanese civilians killed— something nobody here is celebrating. Whoever was behind the beeper/walkie-talkie explosions, it’s important to remember that, by definition, they focused on Hezbollah operatives, not civilians— and this is an important distinction. The Israeli strikes in Lebanon are not blindly targeting broad population centers, but Hezbollah arms caches (for which the IDF gives advanced warning) and senior Hezbollah leaders. But it’s also true that in both cases, a number of civilians, including children, were hurt or killed.

   Disregarding specific biases that exist in news coverage, the media, by definition, highlights the new and dramatic at the expense of the added context and balance. So 100 or 300 missiles launched at Israel in a single day results in a very small news piece when the details to fill in the second and third paragraphs if there isn’t widespread destruction from a single attack, and especially, if one can’t fill in the reports with funerals. Therefore, important facts like a civilian population enduring almost twelve full months of direct attacks by a heavily armed militia, in their own homes and communities, is something that, in the best of cases, only makes it as a footnote.

7. You said something about hundreds of thousands or even millions of Israelis running for shelter after a single missile was fired. Why so broad an area?

   With “regular” mortars or Katyusha rockets from Lebanon or Gaza, or one of the mid-range missiles that can reach 100 or 200 kilometers, the Iron Dome system is the main line of defense. Once a rocket/missile is detected and its trajectory mapped, the Iron Dome interceptors are launched, and in the vast majority of cases, cause it to explode in mid air. Air raid sirens are activated only for the area where the missile is expected to land (if the Iron Dome fails to intercept it) and especially, for the areas where shrapnel from the interception is expected to fall. This is usually a small area — for instance, for a city the size of Modiin, there are two independent missile alarm areas, and depending on each case, sometimes only one is activated.

   
   But for longer range missiles that are considerably larger and can carry a bigger explosive payload, different defense systems, such as “David’s Sling” and “Arrow” are deployed. And because the interceptions are done at a significantly higher altitude, there is a larger radius of where the remains of the interception (the “debris” from the larger missile and of the interceptor) can fall. Thus, last night, there was a missile alert in my city, even if when interception too place “outside Israel’s territory.”

   

   A screenshot showing some of the towns and cities that had a missile alert from the ballistic missile last night.

8. Is this campaign the same war as the one in Gaza, or a different one?

   Hezbollah began attacking Israel immediately after the Hamas by Hamas “in solidarity with Gazans.” Netanyahu, wanting to a void a multi-front war, decided not to launch the “preemptive attacks” that many in his circle recommended. So the ongoing battles simply became “the situation in the north.”

   The current escalation, however, was given its own name: Operation Northern Arrows (Chetzei Tzafon,) a way of signaling that, for Israel, the “Swords of Iron” war in the south ,and the war formerly known as the situation in the north, are two separate things.

   But for Israelis, especially the soldiers moving from the north to the south and back to the north, or the reservists being called up for their second (or third, or fourth,) round of reserve duty in the last 12 months, it feels like a single, nonstop loop. It’s not just the cooling weather that reminds us October 2023 — it’s the feeling that we have never really moved past it.

9. Do Israelis want a ceasefire?

   The short answer is yes, because Israelis have lived through two Lebanon wars before, and know that, in the end, the only real solution will be a diplomatic one.

   But it’s also true that Israelis are far less naive than many in the West, and realize that stopping now will allow Hezbollah to rebuild their communications capabilities, and that there’s a lot of infrastructure —including the tunnels at the border— that hasn’t been dealt with, and that the Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces, their commando units, while partially hit, are still threatening the border.

   So it’s no surprise that both Defense Minister Gallant and IDF Chief Halevi said yesterday that we should continue hitting Hezbollah, or that the mayors of northern communities, after a year of being on the receiving end of attacks, and asking the IDF to launch an offensive, are pressuring Netanyahu not to give in. Also, on the national stage, it’s not just the far-right ministers who want to see more military gains (and make a spectacle of it for their own political gains) but center and left-leaning figures, who demand that before reching a truce, Israel can extract a significant price to ensure Hezbollah is deterred from its plans to attacking the north once the families begin the task of rebuilding their communities.

   The consensus seems to be “yes” to a short and hard hit to Hezbollah (and not to Lebanon, and especially not to the Lebanese people), a big “no” to a war of attrition like the one the north has seen in the last 12 months, and “hell no” to an-all out war with Hamas, and Hezbollah, and the rest of Iranian proxies, and with Iran itself.

10. Wait, where is Sinwar/Hamas in all this?

    The last week also brought reports that the head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar has been completely completely out of reach for days or weeks. There were also reports that Israel performed DNA tests on bodies found in Gaza to check if one of them wasn’t Sinwar’s. There is probably lots happening in the background that we don’t hear about. Our main concern, of course, is the fate of the 101 hostages, half of whom are probably still alive, at least according to remarks by Netanyahu himself few days ago.

11. So what will happen next?

    Nobody knows, of course.

    I can only tell you what I would like to happen. In my ideal world, Israel seizes this opportunity to reach a ceasefire in the north and avoid an all-out regional war, AND negotiate an end the war in Gaza AND bring back the hostages.

    I realize chances are are slim, but then again, this feels like a time where anything is possible. And as someone who knows very little of military strategy, but has skin in the game (my son’s unit is one of those now assigned to the north,) it’s obvious where my interests are.

In the meantime, I am just trying to keep busy. And pray for good news. And to hold it together.

Shabbat shalom.