The Israeli Army simulates a war with Hezbollah

The Israel Defense Army has launched the largest military exercise in the last twenty years, in the north of the country, which includes land, sea, air and intelligence forces. The maneuvers, supervised by the Northern Command, will last around ten days.

It includes the simulation of an immediate escalation scenario, in which the army must defend Israel against multiple terrorist infiltrations from the north of the country.

For example, in one of the scenarios, Hezbollah terrorists enter the Moshav Shavei Tzión, fifteen kilometers from the border with Lebanon, from the sea, while other forces of that Shiite Islamic extremist group launch an attack in Gesher Benot Yaakov , in the Golan Heights. The Army will also carry out an attack on Lebanon and the evacuation of Israeli border cities in the face of an intense missile attack.

Regular divisions, reservists, maneuver brigades, intelligence units, advanced multi-layer anti-missile systems, special forces, combat engineering forces, logistics and the Rear Command (Pikud Haoref) will be deployed: in total, it is estimated that between 20.000 and 30.000 people will participate in the largest maneuvers since 1998.

Military sources indicated that they have seen Hezbollah trying to carefully observe the preparations for the maneuvers, and that the Shiite organization has been put on alert.

"The purpose of the exercise is to check the level of preparedness of the Northern Command and the relevant battalions during an emergency," said a senior officer. The goal is to practice at different levels of combat, including less predictable and dynamic environments based on what was learned and implemented in the Second Lebanon War. In the maneuver scenario, the Cabinet orders the armed forces to defeat Hezbollah – "as I understand it, it is the state in which Hezbollah loses the ability or desire to continue attacking," the officer explained.

The source insisted that these maneuvers, called Or HaDagan, in homage to former Mossad director Meir Dagan, who led the previous maneuvers in 1998, have been in preparation for a year and do not represent "any change in the assessment of the security situation." ».

Meanwhile, Russia threatened to use its veto power at the UN if Hezbollah, its ally in the Syrian civil war, was mentioned in the Security Council resolution to renew the peacekeeping force's mandate in southern Lebanon.

The United States and Israel wanted the text of the resolution of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to have a greater presence south of the Litani River and exercise its full authority to prevent violations of UN Resolution 1701 , which ended the 34-day Second Lebanon War in August 2006.