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While Israel ramps up fighting and air strikes in Lebanon and Hezbollah increases its drone and rocket attacks on Israel, Lebanon’s beloved but terribly underfunded military is sitting out the conflict.
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.
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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.
Since late September, more than 1,600 people in Lebanon have been killed and thousands wounded by Israeli attacks, the Lebanese health ministry said. Some 1.2 million people are now displaced, according to the UN. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has clashed with Israeli troops in villages in south Lebanon and increased its rocket fire towards targets deeper into Israeli territory.
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Battered by five years of economic crisis, the Lebanese army has an estimated 80,000 troops operating an outdated arsenal with no air defence systems and a limited navy.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.
