Why War Might Break Out Between Israel and Lebanon

this video is brought to you by nebula the probability of a war between Israel and Lebanon is at its highest point since the end of the last war in 2006. according to the Israeli military so with border incidents and provocations increasing in frequency and both Israel and Lebanon experiencing their own political and social turmoil in this video we'll explore what's going on at the border and why there are fears that are full-on conflict between Israel and Lebanon or more specifically Hezbollah could erupt [Music] let's start with some quick background during lebanon's devastating civil war between 1975 and 1990 Israel invaded and occupied parts of the country it was in this context that Hezbollah emerged in the 80s with the backing of Iran to resist the Israeli occupation the islamist group which is also a political party has been described as the world's most heavily armed non-state actor and wield significant political power in Lebanon and controls much of lebanon's Shiite majority areas Israel eventually withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 but in 2006 Israel and Hezbollah fought a destructive month-long war after the group abducted two Israeli soldiers moving on to the current day to understand what's going on we need to talk about borders if you look at a map you'll see a pretty clear border between Israel and Lebanon but on closer inspection it's not that simple the United Nations interim force in Lebanon or unifil actually says this is not a border instead they describe the frontier as a line of withdrawal known as the Blue Line it was drawn up by the UN as a way to effectively verify whether Israeli forces had fully withdrawn from Lebanon in accordance with U.N security Council resolution 425 which they did in the year 2000. unified peacekeepers describe themselves as temporary custodians of the line who are quote focused on maintaining calm and stability along this fragile Frontier and avoiding unnecessary provocations and incidents that may lead to crisis and potentially to a conflict now given we've made this video you've probably figured out that despite unifil's Mission provocations and incidents continue to occur one point of contention is the village ganja which straddles the Blue Line the southern half of this Village sits on the Israeli side of the line or to be more precise it sits in an area called the Golan Heights which is a disputed Israeli occupied region that Israel captured from Syria in 1967. the northern half of the ganjar meanwhile is north of the Blue Line in Lebanon however despite the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah Israel took control of the whole village including the Lebanese northern half according to a un report from June 2023 the Israeli Defense Forces continue to occupy Northern ganjar in violation of Security Council resolution 1701. naturally this puts the locals in this strange position of being primarily alawite syrians technically living on the Lebanese soil whilst carrying Israeli passports nevertheless in 2022 Israel began reinforcing the fence around the northern part of ganjar with a concrete wall much to the displeasure of Lebanon and Hezbollah in a move that further inflamed tensions Hezbollah erected two tents some 30 meters south of the Blue Line I.E on the Israeli side in the disputed Sheba Farms area and the unifil mission observed individuals repeatedly crossing the line from north to south in order to access the structures all of this constitutes a clear violation of resolution 1701 according to the UN but Hezbollah leader Hassan nazrolah says the moves are in response to Israel's actions in the ganja and while one tent was eventually removed the other Still Remains despite Israeli appeals for it to go but it's not all about walls and tents that have in fact been recent clashes and cross-border exchanges of fire for example following a roadside bombing in Northern Israel in March the Israeli military said it believed the suspect had crossed into Israel from Lebanon and that it had thought that Hezbollah was behind the attack in April amid heightened tensions between Israel and Palestine lebanon-based Palestinian militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel injuring three Israelis in what was the longest cross-border barrage since the 2006 war in response Israel launched its own strikes against Targets in southern Lebanon then in July a rocket launched from Lebanon landed near the village of ganjar and Israel responded with more cross-border strikes then later that month specifically on the anniversary of the beginning of the 2006 War Israeli forces used what they called a non-lethal weapon to push back a number of suspects presumed to be Hezbollah members from damaging the security fence on the frontier now it might be tempting to look at these incidents as well as the ones in recent years and say that these kind of tit-for-tat exchanges are just a normal feature of the two countries relationship and that they tend not to escalate but that ignores the fact that things do actually seem to be different this time for starters the frequency has reportedly increased with an Israeli official saying recent months have been intense adding that there are more and more incidents six months ago one Patrol was enough and now we need four and we're on high alert the possibility of violent engagement is higher another factor that makes things different is the domestic situation in both countries Lebanon is of course still experiencing a major economic and political crisis it has a caretaker cabinet no president a hardly functioning State and the currency has collapsed this has been ongoing for some years now exacerbated by the catastrophic Beirut Port explosion in August 2020 and the covid-19 pandemic meanwhile down in Israel things have deteriorated since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the end of 2022. the country is deeply split over his controversial judicial reform which has sparked unprecedented protests and Strikes including by thousands of military reservists who've refused to report for Duty the profound crisis in Israel has not gone unnoticed by the likes of Hezbollah in Lebanon or indeed by Iran as the Israeli military has warned the government that its enemies sent a historic opportunity to shift the balance of power in their favor while Israel is consumed in its own crisis in fact when the first part of netanyahu's judicial reform was passed and met with protest hezbollah's leader said it must be the worst day in Israel's history and the country was on the path to collapse fragmentation and Disappearance in response to the recent friction the Israeli defense minister threatened to return Lebanon to the Stone Age if war with Hezbollah broke out so will War break out is the big question Israeli security officials have reportedly warned that the probability of another war with Lebanon is at its highest since the end of the war in 2006. so the threat appears to be serious interestingly security officials and analysts don't appear to believe that Hezbollah necessarily wants to actually start another War but is more interested in testing Israel's patience and maintaining its image as the viable resistance force but while it fortunately seems that the majority of Border incidents don't seem to escalate Beyond an action and a response the danger is that every incident and provocation provides another chance for full-on war to erupt now if you're interested in questions about International politics in these kind of Dynamics then you'll love our daily discussions where we cover a number of other important topics from the endless coups in the Sahel region the Twitter Rebrand or the specifics of the war in Ukraine the tldr writing team hosts these daily discussions most days diving deeper into a new story we write about and unpacking the hidden details that they found fascinating but that were either too long or too academic to make it into the final script if you want to check this 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Channel: TLDR News Global

Views: 443,861

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Id: E-6xDou9pwY

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023