Israel has spent months assembling troops near the border with Lebanon amid increasingly heavy back-and-forth clashes with Hezbollah, with the simultaneous detonation of up to 5,000 pagers and other electronic devices September 17-18 targeting Hezbollah fighters and injuring thousands of civilians followed up by heavy airstrikes targeting the militia's commanders, culminating in Hassan Nasrallah's assassination in a massive strike in Beirut last Friday.
“A ground operation in Lebanon by Israel is likely, given the military buildup near the border. However, such an operation carries significant risks” for Tel Aviv, political researcher Dr. Mehmet Rakipoglu told Sputnik.
“In urban warfare, non-state actors like Hezbollah can inflict heavy damage on conventional military forces, making even limited operations perilous. Israel risks facing a situation similar to its prolonged struggle in Gaza, potentially drawing itself into a protracted conflict,” Rakipoglu, an assistant professor at Turkiye’s Mardin Artuklu University, and director of Turkish Studies at the Istanbul-based Mokha Center for Strategic Studies, explained.