Lebanon’s army looks on as fighting intensifies between Israel and Hezbollah

Since Israel escalated its military operations in Lebanon two weeks ago there have been several direct strikes by Israel on Lebanese forces; Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese army position on October 3 and an air strike killed two Lebanese soldiers on October 11. In both instances, the Lebanese army said it returned fire.

Both attacks happened near the town of Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon, around five miles back from the Israeli border. This is where Lebanese troops are now positioned after being pulled back from the boundary when rumblings of an imminent Israeli ground offensive began on September 30.

Israel says it is targeting infrastructure in Lebanon used by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah including tunnel systems, weapons caches and the suspected locations of high-profile leaders.

But deadly strikes have also hit residential buildings outside known Hezbollah strongholds as well as bases in the south used by the Lebanese military and UN peacekeeping forces.

Between Israel and Hezbollah, “Lebanon’s military are very much stuck between a rock and a hard place,” says Professor Clive Jones, director of the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Durham, UK. “There’s very, very little that the Lebanese army can do regarding the Israeli incursion.”

Battered by five years of economic crisis, the Lebanese army has an estimated 80,000 troops operating an outdated arsenal with no air defence systems and a limited navy. It is largely funded by subsides from the US and Qatar, which in September approved a three-month grant for fuel costs.

“We have reports of soldiers who are having to take on second jobs because their monthly salary doesn’t cover basic living costs, and that includes even up to the rank of senior officers,” Jones says.

Inside Lebanon, it is out-muscled by Hezbollah which has an estimated 100,000 fighters, according to the group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and an arsenal supplied by Iran.

Against Israel, Lebanon is the David to a military Goliath possessed with state-of-the-art technologies and an estimated 670,000 personnel.

“The role of most armies – in trying to defend the territorial integrity of the country – is one that the Lebanese army has never been able to perform, and is certainly not able to perform right now,” Jones says.

Trust, stability

Although the army is not in a position to defend Lebanon, it plays an important symbolic role in the national psyche.

Lebanon’s military is “one of the few institutions that command the trust of both the vast majority of Lebanese citizens and international stakeholders”, says Fadi Nicholas Nassar, US-Lebanon fellow at the Middle East Institute.

“If you look at opinion polling, the one institution that most Lebanese actually have some trust is not the government, but the army,” says Jones. “It reflects an ideal of a multi-sectarian body, which demonstrates that the various communities can actually work together.”

Such is its popularity that current commander General Joseph Aoun is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.

In a country that is fractured socially and politically, the army also plays an important role in maintaining stability through operations such as working with UN peacekeeping forces in the south.

More recently, “the army has stepped in to ease tensions between displaced Lebanese and host communities”, says David Wood, Senior Analyst for Lebanon for the International Crisis Group, speaking from Beirut.

Watch moreDisplaced Lebanese families face harsh conditions

It could be expected that when the conflict in Lebanon dies down, “the army will almost certainly play a huge role in the post-war security arrangement for southern Lebanon and for Lebanon in general”, Wood says.

A show of power

Some Western leaders also see Lebanon’s military as a channel for aid.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host a summit in Paris on October 24 to rally the international community to support Lebanon’s institutions, “especially those of the Lebanese armed forces”.

However, the conditions that come with this aid are important, Wood says. “The question becomes what does the international community want from the army in return for providing those funds?”

Pressuring the army to intervene against Hezbollah could cause it to fracture along community lines. “It’s not very hard to imagine a scenario where Lebanese Shia, who make up many of the rank-and-file members of the army would either refuse to act or would desert entirely,” Wood says.

Similarly, action from the Lebanese military against Israel would officially expand the scope of the conflict into a war against two states, rather than what Israel says is a war between itself and Hezbollah.

Israel maintains that members of the Lebanese armed forces and UN peacekeepers hit by Israeli fire in south Lebanon were positioned close to Hezbollah infrastructure.

But the strikes are also a show of Israeli military dominance. Wood says, “aside from the humanitarian concerns of attacking Lebanese soldiers who are not engaged in direct combat with the IDF, what Israel is doing is undermining the credibility of the Lebanese army”.

To what end? Jones suspects that Israel will attempt to oust UN and Lebanese forces in favour of “some form of Israeli control” in southern Lebanon where, so far, an estimated 15,000 Israeli soldiers are operating.

Lebanon’s army has declined to comment on how it will react if Israeli ground forces advance further.

France 24