This time last year a lot of the discussion on this blog concerned the Israel-Lebanon war (now dubbed by Israel the “Second Lebanon War” even though there is no official “First Lebanon War”). It’s interesting then what one Hezbollah official had to say yesterday.
“The cease-fire acted as a life jacket for the organization [at the end of the Second Lebanon War],” a Hizbullah officer said in an interview aired by Channel 10 on Tuesday.
In the interview, the unnamed officer said Hizbullah gunmen would have surrendered if the fighting last summer had continued for another 10 days.
The officer shown on Channel 10 said the organization’s gunmen had been running low on food and water and facing rapidly diminishing arms supplies.
The officer also said that many Hizbullah commanders were ordered to hide before the war started, and that the gunmen who remained were forced to fire Katyusha rockets from inside urban populations because of the IDF’s efficiency in destroying launchers minutes after a launch had been detected.
He said that when the gunmen relocated to cities and villages, they knew innocent civilians would be hurt as a consequence. (Source: JPost)
Hindsight of course is 20/20, but there were plenty of people who thought that the war ended prematurely without Irael accomplishing its objectives. This view from the other side suggests that Israel should not have stopped when it did. What will Israel do next time?