| Bint Jbeil; Hezbollah’s Blood
Victory |
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| Information
Clearing House |
| Monday, September
4, 2006 |
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“C’est la Victoire du Sang: It’s the Victory of
Blood”;
Hezbollah flag spotted in South Lebanon |
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There’s a sign
at the entrance to Bint Jbeil that says: “Bint
Jbeil—Capital of Freedom”. The cheery greeting contrasts
dramatically with the vast devastation that lies just
beyond. Bint Jbeil was a bustling hamlet in Southern
Lebanon that became the central battlefield in Israel’s’
war of aggression. It withstood the IAFs withering
aerial bombardments as well as a month-long siege which
left most of the town in complete ruins. Bint Jbeil is
where a small group of committed nationalists stood up
to the mighty IDF in “toe to toe combat and forced them
to withdraw. Its where the sluggish wheel of Middle East
history shifted ever-so slightly, challenging the
dominance of Israeli military power as the sole agent
for change in the region. The results of the battle have
already sent shock-waves through the area’s political
landscape.
Bint Jbeil has been called Nasrallahgrad, in honor of
the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and the
Russian city where the “costliest battle in human
history” was fought from Aug 1942 to Feb 1943. Just as
the Russian army faced the German Wehrmacht in a
year-long siege, so too, Hezbollah fought from the
wreckage of their battle-scarred city for 28 days
without yielding an inch of ground. In the end, their
determination upset the over-confident IDF and turned
the invasion into a hasty retreat.
On July 26, Israel suffered its heaviest one day loss
during the conflict. In a bold, daylight ambush,
Hezbollah killed 9 members of the elite Golani Brigades,
destroyed a Merkava Tank and armored troop-carrier, and
stopped the IDFs advance on the city. The news of the
casualties stunned the Israeli public who were expecting
triumphant reports from the front. This was not the
cakewalk-war their leaders had promised. Hezbollah was
geared up for combat and the Israeli High-Command was
suddenly thrown into disarray. The guerilla-militia’s
daring tactics and sophisticated weaponry, particularly
their Russian-made anti-tank missiles, took Israel
completely by surprise and created a palpable sense of
self-doubt among the IDF leadership. Chief of Staff Dan
Halutz and Defense Minister Emir Peretz never completely
regained their footing.
One Hezbollah cadre described the fighting this way:
“We saw the IDF taking up posts here and here (pointing
to the ranges which overlook the town from east and
south)”We knew they would eventually come down. We
prepared an ambush near the jail behind the trees. They
arrived in a very small force, maybe 20 or 30 soldiers.
They walked right in front of us, and then we opened
fire. We hit many of them and they began running like
madmen, trying to drag their killed and wounded. We
continued to shoot at them until they were gone.” (YNET
News “An Israeli in Katyushaland”)
Another Hezbollah fighter added, “Houses and stores were
leveled to the ground, but we arose from the rubble like
lions, not caring about the shooting of guns, tanks, and
bombs…The ‘invincible army’ became a laughingstock.”
Sketchy accounts of the battle have appeared in the Arab
media and circulated on the internet patching together
picture of fierce street-by-street gun-battles which
(according to Jane’s Weekly) sometimes included hand to
hand combat. The well-disciplined Hezbollah fighters
held their ground despite the nonstop aerial attacks and
artillery bombardment.
No one knows exactly how many Hezbollah fighters were
involved in the hostilities, but estimates range from
100 to 200. Their forces were broken into small cells
which operated independently of a central command.
Although the fighters are superbly trained for
guerilla-style warfare their overall instructions are
quite simple and straightforward, “When you see the
Israelis, attack them.”
This strategy had a profound effect on the war’s
outcome. Hezbollah does not play defense. They swarm
their enemy inflicting as much damage as possible and
then return to hideouts. Their daring and aggressive
tactics kept the better-armed Israelis constantly off
balance. In a matter of weeks they had killed 118 IDF
regulars and blown up an estimated 20 Merkava Tanks.
That's why Israel decided to cut its losses and leave.
The defeat has ignited a firestorm of anxiety and
vitriol in the Israeli press. The front-page
recriminations appear on a daily basis and most of the
newspapers have already called for the resignations of
Olmert, Halutz and Peretz. But the IDFs lack of
preparedness is only part of the story. Hezbollah has
thousands of highly-motivated and ferocious fighters who
fully-grasp the intricacies of asymmetrical warfare and
how to minimize the comparative advantages of Israel’s
superior firepower. This victory belongs to them. They
are the ones who liberated their country from foreign
invasion.
Even so, the cost of victory has been enormous. Bint
Jbeil felt the full-force of Israel’s wrath and has been
reduced to a wasteland of scattered rubble and
bombed-out wreckage. Most of the buildings have been
either leveled completely or are so severely smashed
that they are uninhabitable. The Israeli Air Force
pummeled the city mercilessly for weeks leaving vast
swaths of the downtown area in a flattened heap of dusty
cobble and twisted iron. Israel’s vicious “scorched
earth” reprisal will take years to repair and, for the
time being, Bint Jbeil is a barren desert lacking food,
clean water or electrical power. The townspeople are at
the mercy of the humanitarian agencies that are only
able to offer sporadic help.
The damage is so vast that some of the city’s people
were not even able to find the homes that they had lived
in their entire lives. The magnitude of the devastation
reflects the frustration that Israel must have felt in
failing to achieve any of its stated objectives. Their
rage is mirrored in the Dresden-like waste and debris
which now extends in all directions from the city’s
center.
Still, there are small signs of Hezbollah’s victory. The
tattered yellow banners emerge from mounds of broken
brick which dot the downtown area and offer a festive
contrast to the pock-marked landscape. There’s also a
strong sense of national pride that hasn’t been
diminished by the daunting task of reconstruction.
Lebanon has paid dearly for Israel’s rampage; the civil
infrastructure has been decimated, the environment
polluted, the forests burned, the factories bombed, and
much of the country is in a complete shambles. Israel
has created a moonscape of ruin that stretches out
across the south and is peppered with tens of thousands
of cluster-bombs that lie in the tall grass waiting to
kill the next generation’s children. This is Israel’s
gift to its northern neighbor, death and disfigurement
for hundreds of people not yet born.
Lebanon is still digging-out and will continue for some
time to come. An AFP reporter observed, “In their wake
the Israelis left trails of concrete wreckage a half
mile long and the stench of corpses buried under
sun-baked rubble where once bustling markets stood.”
Funerals are now the primary form of public engagement.
Israel, however, has lost even more than Lebanon. Its
prized “deterrents” have been shattered and the IDFs
image of “invincibility” has vanished overnight. Their
withdrawal is generally seen as capitulation and an
admission of defeat. The humiliation has outraged
Israelis from across the political spectrum and created
the likelihood that Olmert may restart the war just to
salvage his waning political career.
Israel’s current strategy looks distressingly similar to
its occupation of Gaza. Olmert has stubbornly defied the
UN and maintained his naval blockade as well as his
control of Lebanese air space. He insists that Israel
has the right to carry out paramilitary operations in
Lebanon if they are in Israel’s security interests. This
violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty is a reminder that
the hostilities could resume at any time and explode
into a full-blown war.
For now, Israel has been beaten and that fact may have a
profound effect on developments in the region. As
British MP George Galloway said, “a shift in the 40
year-old paradigm of the Israeli-Arab conflict that is
puncturing the belief in a permanent and unchallengeable
Israeli military superiority over its neighbors and the
hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders….The Israelis
were given a severe mauling by Hezbollah fighters when
it came to boots on the ground…But make no mistake, with
the victory of Hezbollah, a terrible beauty is born.”
Will Israel recognize the shifting dynamic in the Middle
East and relinquish its dependence on military power as
its main implement foreign policy? If so, then there
might be a chance for a negotiated settlement and grand
bargain involving all the parties. That would make the
blood payments on both sides worth the sacrifice.
If that’s the case, we’re bound to look back on Bint
Jbeil as a turning point, where the clash between the
Israeli Goliath and Hezbollah guerillas created the
opportunity to resolve long-held grievances and move the
region towards a lasting peace. |
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