BEIRUT (AP) — Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border, while the Lebanese army has largely remained on the sidelines.
It is not the first time that the national army has watched the war at home from the uncomfortable position of a bystander.
Lebanon's widely beloved army is one of the few institutions bridging the country's sectarian and political divisions. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, General Joseph Aoun, is widely seen as one of the front-runners to step in if the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and appoints a president.
But with an aging arsenal and no air defenses, and ravaged by five years of economic crisis, the national army is ill-prepared to defend Lebanon against aerial bombardment or a ground offensive from a well-equipped modern army like Israel's.
The army is militarily overshadowed by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has approximately 80,000 men, of which approximately 5,000 are in the south. Hezbollah has more than 100,000 fighters, according to the militant group's late leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The arsenal – built with support from Iran – is also more advanced.
A cautious first reaction
Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have clashed since October 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets across the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza.
In recent weeks, Israel has carried out a major aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion, which it says aims to push Hezbollah back from the border and allow displaced residents of northern Israel to return.
As Israeli forces made their first forays across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese soldiers withdrew from observation posts along the border and moved back about 5 kilometers.
So far, the Israeli forces have not advanced that far. The only direct confrontations between the two national armies were on October 3, when Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese army position in the Bint Jbeil area, killing one soldier, and on Friday, when two soldiers were killed in an airstrike in the same area . area. The Lebanese army said it returned fire both times.
The Lebanese army declined to comment on how it will respond if Israeli ground forces advance further.
Analysts familiar with the army's operations said that should the Israeli incursion reach current army positions, Lebanese forces would put up a fight – but to a limited extent.
The army's “natural and automatic mission is to defend Lebanon against any army that would enter Lebanese territory,” said former Lebanese Army General Hassan Jouni. “If the Israeli enemy enters, he will of course defend himself, but within the means available … without reaching the point of recklessness or suicide.”
Israeli and Lebanese armies are 'total overmatch'
The current Israeli invasion of Lebanon is the fourth in the neighboring country in the past fifty years. In most previous invasions, the Lebanese army played a similar peripheral role.
The only exception, says Aram Nerguizian, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, was in 1972, when Israel tried to create a 12-mile buffer zone to push back Palestine Liberation Organization fighters. .
At the time, Nerguizian said, the Lebanese army successfully slowed the pace of the Israeli advance and “bought time for the political leadership in Beirut to seek the intervention of the international community to pressure Israel for a cease-fire fire.”
But the internal situation in Lebanon – and the military's capabilities – deteriorated with the outbreak of a fifteen-year civil war in 1975, in which both Israeli and Syrian forces occupied parts of the country.
Hezbollah was the only faction allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war, with the aim of resisting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon – which ended in 2000.
In 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a blood-curdling month-long war, the Lebanese army “had been unable to invest in any real post-war modernization, was unable to deter the Israeli air force” and “was completely exposed .” Nerguizian said: “The few times the (Lebanese army) and Israeli forces engaged militarily, there was a total overmatch.”
International aid has been a mixed blessing
After the outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria in 2011 and the rise of the Islamic State militant group there, the Lebanese army saw a new influx of military aid. The country successfully fought against IS on the Lebanese border in 2017, but not alone: Hezbollah simultaneously attacked the group on the other side of the border.
When Lebanon's financial system and currency collapsed in 2019, the military took a hit. It had no budget to purchase weapons and maintain its existing supplies, vehicles and aircraft. The average soldier's salary is now worth about $220 a month, and many resorted to a second job. At one point, the United States and Qatar both provided a monthly subsidy for soldiers' salaries.
The US was one of the main backers of the Lebanese army before the crisis. The country has provided about $3 billion in military aid since 2006, according to the Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that it aims to “enable the Lebanese army to be a stabilizing force against regional threats” and “the to strengthen Lebanon's sovereignty and secure its borders.” , counter internal threats and disrupt the facilitation of terrorism.”
President Joe Biden's administration has also touted the Lebanese army as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, hoping that a greater deployment of its forces would displace Hezbollah in the border area.
But that support has limits. Aid to the Lebanese army has at times been politically controversial within the US, with some lawmakers claiming it could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, although there is no evidence this has occurred.
In Lebanon, many believe the U.S. has prevented the military from obtaining more advanced weapons that could help the country defend itself against Israel — America's strongest ally in the region and the recipient of at least $17.9 billion in U.S. military aid in the region. years since the war. started in Gaza.
“It is my personal opinion that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) army to have advanced air defense equipment, and this issue is related to Israel,” said Walid Aoun, a retired general and military analyst of the Lebanese army.
Nerguizian said the perception is “not a conspiracy or a half-truth,” noting that the US has introduced a legal requirement to support Israel's qualitative military edge over all other militaries in the region.
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Associated Press writer Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
