“We can plunge Lebanon completely into the dark and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days,” former Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz declared Tuesday at a conference at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel.
It was just the latest threat from a prominent Israeli public figure against Lebanon and Hezbollah as tensions flare.
It won’t be difficult for Israel to plunge Lebanon into darkness. The country’s power grid, already crippled by decades of mismanagement and the country’s economic collapse, barely functions as it is. A few well-aimed airstrikes will easily finish it off.
Taking apart Hezbollah’s power in days, however, is a far taller task.
Since its inconclusive 2006 war with the Lebanese militant group, Israel has been planning for a re-match.
Hezbollah too has long been preparing for war.
Its arsenal includes, according to Israeli estimates, at least 150,000 missiles and rockets. Israel estimates the group has already fired 5,000 since October, which means, as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech last week, much of its arsenal remains intact.
]That Israeli officials have been surprised by the sophistication of the militant group’s attacks.
These include systematic pinpoint strikes on Israel’s array of surveillance outposts along the border, shooting down high-flying top-of-the-line Israeli drones, and hits on Israel’s Iron Dome batteries and anti-drone defenses. Perhaps the biggest surprise for Israel, however, was the nine minutes of drone footage Hezbollah published online of highly sensitive civilian and military infrastructure in and around the northern city of Haifa.
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