Israeli press review: Confusion over army's plan in Lebanon

Confusion over Israeli army plan in Lebanon

On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the army had launched “a ground manoeuvre in Lebanon to remove threats and protect” the residents of northern Israel.

Katz said that “hundreds of thousands of Shiite residents of southern Lebanon who have fled or are fleeing their homes will not be allowed to return south of the Litani area until the security of the northern residents is ensured.”

But the Israeli media is reporting what appears to be a conflict between public statements regarding the nature of the operation and the operation’s actual intentions.

On Monday, Haaretz cited military sources who said that Israeli ground operations are directed at removing Hezbollah operatives from the border area, not stripping the missile threat from Lebanon.

The Israeli army sources told Haaretz that the new operation aimed to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Litani River.

According to Israel's Channel 13, the Israeli army has erected 20 outposts in Lebanon, in what the channel said resembled the “Security Zone” policy that guided Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000. 

Amos Harel, a military commentator for Haaretz, noted that “Hezbollah’s presence south of the Litani is limited in scope”, and that the group’s remaining operatives there can quickly move north before the Israeli army gets to them.

Harel questioned the effectiveness of the new military operation, noting that most of the missiles and drones directed at Israel from Lebanon are fired from north of the Litani.

Closed gas rigs proving costly

With the war on Iran leading to what some describe as the worst energy crisis in modern history, Israel’s gas rigs in the Mediterranean have remained shut since it began, economic daily Calcalist reported on Monday. 

“Mediterranean gas rigs have been shut down for the third time since the outbreak of the October 7 war, forcing the energy sector to once again rely on more expensive and polluting fuels such as coal and diesel,” the report said.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen extended the gas rigs shutdown until 26 March over fears they could be attacked.

But the cost of the shutdown is raising questions over government policy, with Israel’s energy sector relying heavily on gas, from which about 70 percent of the country’s energy production comes.

An Israeli financial expert told Calcalist that shutting down Israel's two gas rigs had cost the Israeli economy 600m shekels ($193m) already.

“The overall economic damage is even higher, driven by the increased cost of electricity production due to greater reliance on coal and diesel,” the expert said.

The report added that the private companies that operate the rigs are suffering losses of millions of US dollars every day. “Revenues have effectively vanished, and the Israeli government is entirely absent from the situation,” an energy company official said.

Interceptor production capacity limited

Recently, Israel denied reports that it was running low on missile interceptors, after Israeli news site Ynet said that more than 1,300 missiles had been fired from Iran and Lebanon since the latest war on Iran began.

On Monday, The Marker, Haaretz’s economics daily, reported that despite Israeli denials, the production of interceptors has a limited capacity. 

The report said that Israel also has an obligation to sell interceptors to Germany, as the two countries recently signed a contract guaranteeing Israel's supply of interceptors to Germany.  

Israel’s arms industry is “producing interceptors around the clock, but both the number of interceptors and the rate of production are limited”, the report said, as the actual rate of production remains under a gag order.

Even if the line of production is extremely fast and effective, it will take Israel “time to make up for the shortages”, the report noted, as the Israeli army has intercepted over a thousand missiles since October 2023. 

“Over the weekend, there were already reports in Israel of missiles that were launched and fell in open areas after a decision was made not to intercept them,” the report said, possibly indicating shortages.

In addition, Israel's Home Front Command changed its alert system this week, stating that it would be aiming to activate sirens and alerts more precisely.