The Overall Effectiveness of Hezbollah’s Strategy to Liberate Southern Lebanon between 1985 and 2000

In 1985, Hezbollah formally declared its existence and established its objectives through its manifesto, titled an “Open Letter”. Hezbollah publicly stated its objectives in Lebanon, to “expel Israel (IDF) for good from Lebanon, as a prelude to its total annihilation”. Indeed, between 1985 and 2000, Hezbollah conducted a campaign of resistance against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, resulting in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2000. This essay will assess the effectiveness of Hezbollah’s strategy to liberate South Lebanon. It will begin by addressing Hezbollah’s ineffective tactics in 1985 and its weak strategic position towards the latter half of the 1980s; an intra-Shiite conflict with its rival Amal and the loss of popular support as it imposed Shariah Law to establish an Islamic Republic. The following sections will demonstrate that Hezbollah’s impressive success is due to its pragmatic political strategy which involved providing social services to their constituents, integrating themselves into domestic politics. Coupled with an improved military performance, intelligence capability and tactical proficiency, the war turned in their favour by the mid-1990s. Hezbollah’s propaganda campaign ultimately reduced the Israeli public’s support for the Lebanon war, making clear that Hezbollah’s grand strategy of attrition was successful in forcing the IDF to withdraw.

1985: Ineffective Fieldcraft

The conflict in South Lebanon was asymmetric in nature, given that Israel as a state, possessed a conventional military: the IDF. Hezbollah, on the other hand, possessed a force of approximately two thousand and could deploy only around five hundred fighters on the ground. Unlikely to win the war by a decisive military victory, Hezbollah’s strategy was thus to conduct a war of attrition, in which they could defeat Israel by wearing them down. Hezbollah’s leadership often cited the American experience in Vietnam, believing that by conducting assaults that sent Israeli troops home in body bags, the morale of Israel’s fighters and Israeli society would decrease. Hezbollah maintained its grand strategy of attrition, adapted its tactics, evolving considerably during the fifteen year-long insurgency.

Hezbollah’s tactics in the 1980s were described as displaying “more enthusiasm than tactical sense”. Up until 1987, the IDF had operational and tactical superiority. Hezbollah’s initial tactics were “human wave attacks” which comprised of “hill-storming” operations in which Hezbollah fighters openly charged the SLA’s and IDF’s heavily fortified outposts. The human cost of these operations was high as they were poorly coordinated and easily countered by the IDF troops positioned behind the fortified outposts. For example, in February 1987 a frontal assault on Beaufort Castle resulted in 8 Hezbollah casualties, and a following 24 casualties were lost in a frontal assault in April.

The ineffectiveness of the hill-storming operations resulted in a short-term increase in suicide bombings; another central tactic used by Hezbollah in the period from 1982 to 1990. Hezbollah conducted 34 suicide operations between 1982 to 1988 resulting in 745 fatalities and 761 wounded. The bombings inflicted a high death toll as they took the enemy by surprise and undermined the IDF’s feeling of security. After 1990, Hezbollah conducted only two vehicle suicide bombings: the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre, both in Argentina. This demonstrated their capability to retaliate against Israel anywhere in the world. The decline of martyrdom operations suggests it was a more important strategy during the 1980s. However, the ineffectiveness of Hezbollah’s early tactical proficiency is exhibited by General Peled, stating in 1987 that in most of the incidents involving Hezbollah, they “quickly ran away” after being fired on by IDF forces, thus showing the IDF had tactical and operational superiority

Strategic Dilemma: The “War of Brothers” and Public Dissatisfaction

The “war of brothers” and the dissatisfaction of Shiites in South Lebanon threatened Hezbollah’s strategic position against Israel. From 1988, Hezbollah became preoccupied with a direct conflict with its Shiite rival Amal. The two factions fought a series of internecine battles, known as the “War of Brothers” in Southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs. The conflict was very costly for Hezbollah in terms of casualties, particularly when operations transferred to the Iqlim al-Toufah and Iqlim al-Kharoub areas of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah eventually defeated Amal, firstly in Haret al-Hreik in Beirut and finalised in the 1989 Taif Accord. In contravention to the Accords, Hezbollah maintained its armed forces and military capabilities, rebranding as an “Islamic Resistance”.

Once Amal had been defeated, Hezbollah attempted to impose an Islamic Republic in Southern Lebanon by seizing state institutions and imposing Shariah Law. This included the closure of coffee shops and liquor stores, and the prohibition of loud music, dancing and alcohol consumption. Given the religious diversity of the population, the imposition of Islamic Law alienated Hezbollah from its core constituents. According to Mao Tse-tung’s manual for guerrilla warfare, a guerrilla movement must have the “sympathetic support of a significant segment of the population”. Thus, the imposition of Islamic Laws and shows that Hezbollah had disregarded the importance of popular support, which threatened the legitimacy of the organisation and their position of power and lost popular support. It was thus crucial that Hezbollah devised a strategy to capture the hearts and minds of the religiously diverse local population.

Political Strategy: Public Support and Domestic Politics

Hezbollah needed a strategy that would capture their political base by reaching beyond Shia religious ideology whilst not disavowing it. Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s strategy was to offer the population a deal: Hezbollah would stop enforcing Shariah Law if the population supported the resistance against Israel. Hezbollah toned down Islamic rhetoric to a degree such that it appeased the non-Islamic community whilst not disavowing its Islamic members. The establishment of an intra-confessional military unit, the “Lebanese Resistance Brigade” showed that they were both tolerant and inclusive of other sects. Successfully negotiating a balance between being conservative enough for its Islamic constituents and secular enough for its non-Islamic constituents resulted in increased popular support; a testament to Hezbollah’s political skill.

The establishment of a social welfare system was crucial to winning the support of the Lebanese population. Programmes such as Jihad al-Binn rebuilt badly needed infrastructure such as sewage, water, electricity and trash collection. Hezbollah also organised education projects and hospitals. Nasrallah noted that without Iranian financial support Hezbollah would not have any reach, and so many of the programmes were financed by Iran. The social welfare provisions helped to rebuild civil society having been neglected by the state government. This is evidenced by the fact Jihad al-Binn presided over the construction of 35 schools, 9,000 homes, 800 shops, 100 mosques and numerous cultural and agricultural centres. It also built 5 hospitals and 8 clinics which still provide free or cheap health care to approximately half a million people annually.

Hezbollah also capitalised on the collateral damage caused by Israeli bombing campaigns, particularly the 1993 Israeli operation “Accountability” and the 1996 operation “Grapes of Wrath”. They rebuilt of 5000 homes in 82 villages that were destroyed. This meant the more the IDF and SLA caused collateral damage on civilians, the more support Hezbollah gained through its reconstruction programmes. Hezbollah considered these programmes as intrinsic to is grand strategy; these programmes bound the population to Hezbollah as they became dependent on these services, creating a “society of resistance”.

In 1992, Hezbollah entered domestic politics by running parliamentary candidates, eight of whom were elected to Parliament. Their integration into the political system removed their underlying revolutionary character, allaying the publics fears that Hezbollah wanted to establish an Islamic State. Instead, their campaign focused on resistance, and their political candidates included civilians and members of other religions. Their political participation strengthened their cause as a nationalist resistance group with a legitimate aim to defend Lebanon from Israeli occupation.

Hezbollah’s success in gaining popular support through its provision of social services and its integration into domestic politics were integral to the success of its campaign to liberate Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s reconstruction programmes filled the vacuum left by the government making sure the population could endure Israeli aggression which secured them popular support.

Tactical Improvements

The 1990s proved that Hezbollah was exceptionally adaptive, having learned from the inefficiency of the frontal assaults of the 1980s. Hezbollah’s tactics evolved into coordinated and sophisticated assaults on multiple outposts, assassinations of high-ranking Israeli officers, and the use of intelligence to a professional calibre resulting in the infiltration of the security zone.

Hezbollah’s improved tactical proficiency is largely due to reforms made in field security. Hezbollah’s assaults during the were ineffective partly because operational details were intercepted by Israeli intelligence because the clerics in Beirut had known about Hezbollah’s upcoming attacks. To prevent this, Nasrallah established a new command structure. Military leaders would report directly to him, and he removed intermediaries between leadership and local commanders, severing the connection between the clergy and the Islamic Resistance. Hezbollah also established a Jihad Council which handled planning and made all strategic and tactical decisions. Furthermore, military units reported to one leader in Beirut, which proved more efficient in the field of combat. The success of this organisational transformation is evidenced by the IDF’s Chief of Staff, Amnon Shahak, complaining of the difficulty in gathering intelligence on Hezbollah’s operations.

Hezbollah’s improved intelligence capability also played a crucial role in Israel’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah had numerous informants embedded in the security zone, who gave information about patrols and convoys. This information was used to supplement operations, such as in 1997, Hezbollah killed sixteen Israeli naval commandos in an ambush based on human intelligence. Villagers also reported that the guerrillas had flown unmanned aerial vehicles over the area prior to the ambush.

The improved intelligence capability exemplifies Hezbollah’s adaptability, given that they learned intelligence gathering practises by observing Israeli intelligence, which they then used against them. The depth of Hezbollah’s infiltration of IDF and SLA forces is evidenced by the targeting of senior officials such as the 1999 IED attack on Senior Israeli Liaison officer Brigadier Erez Gerstein. They also conducted coordinated attacks on IDF and SLA outposts with greater sophistication than in the 1980s. For example, in July 1998, Hezbollah successfully launched a coordinated attack on 18 outposts killing, 3 IDF soldiers and suffering only one fatality of its own. An attack of this magnitude clearly demonstrates a level of planning, coordination, and training that was absent in the 1980s.

Hezbollah’s flexibility is best demonstrated by their ability to quickly adapt their tactics in response to the IDF’s changing countermeasures. As the war progressed, the IDF evolved from reinforcing their fortified positions to using more mobile patrols. Hezbollah adapted their tactics from targeting these positions using rockets to ambushes and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). 246 instances of Hezbollah violence directed against Israeli forces or civilians were caused by IEDs, which were placed along IDF and SLA patrol routes camouflaged in hollow foam rocks. Initially, IEDs were detonated using a wire. As a countermeasure, the IDF equipped patrol vehicles with wire cutting attachments. In response, Hezbollah used radio detonators. When the IDF learned this, they swept for radio frequencies. When radio detonators lost their advantage, Hezbollah used cell phones. According to commander of the Golani Brigade, Hezbollah was a “learning organisation”, studying Israel’s evolving tactics and adapting their own.

1990s: Strategic Success

Hezbollah understood that the war would turn on public opinion, so it needed to target the Achilles heel of Israeli society: sensitivity to the loss of human life. Hezbollah focused on manipulating Israeli public opinion by directly targeting Israeli civilians and by constructing a sophisticated media apparatus reach Israeli society and undermine their support for the war.

Hezbollah’s media operations played a crucial role in their successful campaign to liberate Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah founded its own radio station Al-Nour and its own television station, Al-Manar in 1991. Hezbollah integrated media and propaganda into its military operations by videoing and broadcasting footage of attacks in Hebrew and disseminated the message that Hezbollah was unrelenting in its campaign to liberate Lebanon and would continue to kill IDF soldiers until it had withdrawn. In the words of Retired Israeli Colonel Shmuel Gordon, reflecting on Hezbollah’s media campaign, “TV reports on a guerrilla operation have more effect than the operation itself”. This certainly rang true for the IDF, who targeted Hezbollah’s TV and radio facilities. This is also because Hezbollah’s media and propaganda campaign contributed to the decreased morale within the IDF and SLA, as the SLA had abandoned 25 percent of its outposts by 1999 despite most of Hezbollah’s anti-outpost attacks causing few casualties.

Hezbollah designed operations to specifically target and exacerbate Israeli society’s dissatisfaction with the war. In January 2000, IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz attempted to allay the publics fears by stating that in 1999 ‘only’ 13 IDF soldiers had been killed. Hezbollah responded by increasing attacks killing 7 IDF soldiers in a matter of weeks. This was a propaganda victory for Hezbollah, with 61 percent of Israeli’s wanting immediate unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon by March of 2000.

Persistent rocket attacks against Israeli civilians had a significant impact on their confidence in Israeli politicians and the military to keep them safe. In the 1990s, Hezbollah had arrived at a modus operandi: if Israel hits Lebanese civilian targets, then Hizballah hits Israel. When the IDF began targeting Hezbollah militants near Lebanese villages, Hezbollah launched over 470 Katyusha rockets into Galilee and occupied Lebanon. This forced hundreds of thousands of civilians in Northern Israel to flee their homes and seek refuge in bomb shelters, causing financial damage to Israel as the government tried to prevent resettlement in other areas.

This led to a set of understandings known as the “rules of the game” – a mutual deterrence and retaliation where Hezbollah would not launch Katyusha rockets into Israel and in return Israel would not launch attacks against Lebanese civilians. This severely weakened the IDFs deterrence posture, and more crucially, allowed Hezbollah to expand its network within the civilian population spread over South Lebanon as the IDFs retaliatory capacity did not allow targeting civilians. It also exposed the fallacy of the “security zone” because the 10-kilometre zone was only half the range of the Katyusha rocket, arousing fears that Israeli’s would never have permanent security from Katyusha rockets. The rockets were also harder for the Israeli air force to locate, and during ‘Grapes of Wrath’ none of the Katyusha rockets were destroyed.

Hezbollah’s strategic success in breaking the Israeli publics support for the war is evidence by the fact Ehud Barak’s poll ratings drastically increased after he pledged to withdraw from Lebanon during the elections. Once elected Prime Minister, Barak decided to unilaterally withdraw. On May 24th, 2000 the last Israeli soldier left Lebanon, making clear that Hezbollah's strategy of attrition was a success.

Conclusion

From 1985-2000, Hezbollah maintained its strategy of attrition warfare to reach its overarching goal of liberating Southern Lebanon from Israel. The inefficacy of their human wave assaults in the 1980s soon developed into a significant tactical proficiency that involved using IEDs, rockets and anti-tank missiles to inflict a persistent trickle of casualties. By the 1990s, the war had turned in Hezbollah’s favour, with its final triumph its propaganda and media campaign which, coupled with its military success, ultimately decreased the morale of the IDF, and eventually lost the Israeli government the support of their own public for the war. Thus, Hezbollah’s adaptability, combined with its mastery of propaganda and media, wore down the IDF and the Israeli public, which eventually forced Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon.

This paper has sought to highlight Hezbollah’s ability to adapt its strategy and tactics in the context of its limitations and strategic threats. Recent footage on Al-Manar has shown Hezbollah fighters simulating combat in staged Israeli villages. Although Hezbollah’s improved field security makes predicting its future strategic and tactical developments difficult, it certainly seems that any future conflict will see Hezbollah take the battle to Israel. Given Hezbollah’s increased weapons arsenal, it is likely to wage a more intense and violent war than discussed in this paper.

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