The IDF has put into place a new doctrine in relation to Hezbollah: any attack on Israel that originates from south Lebanon, no matter by what group, and no matter how little damage that attack may cause, will be answered by overwhelming force directed at Hezbollah. More on this change in the IDF’s security doctrine can be found here: “Israel’s new doctrine: Crushing Hezbollah, not just deterring – analysis,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, March 23, 2025:
Israel and the IDF have a new security doctrine in Lebanon: It is called keeping Hezbollah crushed.
Not deterred, but crushed.
What is actually the smaller piece, if still important, is what just happened over the weekend.
Some small cell of terrorists, so far it seems from sources who are themselves not 100% certain that it was very likely a Palestinian terror group and not Hezbollah itself, tried to fire six rockets at Metulla.
Three fell within Lebanon and three were shot down by Israel’s air defenses.
Not a single Israeli was hurt and not a single structure was hit.
No one was killed in Israel. No one was hurt. Of the six rockets aimed at the Israeli border town of Metulla, three landed inside Lebanon, and the remaining three were intercepted by Israeli defenses.
Pre-October 7 Israel would have highlighted that Hezbollah was not involved, that no one was hurt, and would have threatened Hezbollah that if they did not keep a lid on the rockets, there could be trouble in the future.
But there would have been either no military response or at most very proportionate counter-fire on the areas which attacked Israel.
Under the new post-October 7 doctrine for Lebanon, Israel not only counter-fired at the source of the attack, but also engaged in multiple rounds of dozens of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon….
Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, the IDF has decided that it will no longer be “proportional” in its responses to any of the attacks by terrorists in Lebanon, even if no damage was done. It will instead take the occasion to respond with overwhelming force against Hezbollah outposts and weapons depots all over Lebanon — even if it suspects, or knows, that the attack was launched by another group. And that is what the IDF has been doing.
On February 18, the Middle East appeared to transform overnight when the IDF withdrew after four-and-a-half months, but it still left several hundred soldiers at five outposts a few hundred meters from the border.
They remain there to this day and all indications from the IDF are that they are due to remain there for the foreseeable months and maybe much longer….
Judging by the statements made by Minister of Defense Israel Katz, those five Israeli outposts will remain in southern Lebanon far beyond the time when Hezbollah retreats entirely north of the Litani River. The IDF may decide to remain in those outposts until the Lebanese army becomes strong enough to face down Hezbollah everywhere in Lebanon, and to reassert its control of the country. The Lebanese National Army is now receiving aid from the Americans and from rich Arab states in the Gulf that view Hezbollah as a threat.
Old Israeli deterrence would be slightly disproportionate about Hezbollah violating the quiet between the sides and would almost never dare to proactively go after Hezbollah for war preparations in Lebanon that fell short of an actual attack….
Now the IDF doesn’t wait for Hezbollah to attack. It is enough that the terror group may be thought to be planning an attack for that to trigger a deadly response by the IDF on Hezbollah bases, and not just south of the Litani, but all over Lebanon.
So far, this change in military doctrine is working. Hezbollah is almost certainly not the source of the recent attacks on Israel from Lebanon — three rockets falling inside Lebanon, and another three intercepted over Israel, causing no damage either to the land or the people of Israel. It’s too afraid to attack. And now, after Israel has bombed dozens of Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon, the terror group does not know where to put its feet and hands. It is too afraid of such an overwhelming response from Israel to try to retaliate. Still worse, now Hezbollah has to try to prevent other Lebanese terrorists from launching rockets, missiles, and drones at Israel, because Hezbollah will be blamed for their attacks, and subjected to punishing blows from the IDF. So far Hamas has shown it understands. It was quick to deny having any part in the latest attack But that did not prevent the IDF from striking Hezbollah targets all over Lebanon.
The new Israeli chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, has said — ominously for Hezbollah — that “this will be a year of war in Lebanon and Iran.” Hezbollah, now quiet and cowering, has to worry about the new rules of the game that the IDF has imposed: any attack, from anyone anywhere in Lebanon, will be considered an attack by Hezbollah, and the IDF response will no longer be “proportionate” as it has been in the past, but ten to twenty times more powerful than the original attack.
What the Lord warned Noah, Israel could now warn Hezbollah: No more water, the fire next time.
somehistory says
I have read the Bible numerous times. I don’t recall reading that “the Lord warned Noah, no more water, fire next time.” He made a ‘promise’ never to destroy life on earth as He had done in the Flood.
But, He did use *water* against Pharoah and his Egyptian armies.
In modern times, one nation in Eastern Europe (Hungary or Poland?) used water cannons very effectively against mozlum hordes demanding to cross the border.
As for Israel warning the mozlum terrorists in Lebanon, one has to let others know that terrorism will not be tolerated.
Terrorism from mozlums has been tolerated for many years. The “leader” of France once remarked that the citizens would have to, basically, get used to it. It’s been said to be the ‘new normal.’
And various talkers have said they won’t allow terrorism to stop them from living.
Why not talk about *stopping* terrorism instead of saying they refuse to let terrorists stop them?
Perhaps Israel has finally had enough.
Tony says
Islam is troublesome everywhere. Islam, a Terrorist-Criminal Enterprise, and its predatory believers continually fund, promote, and practice ideological subversion, propaganda, bigotry, discrimination, deceit, supremacy, segregation, hatred, violence, and terrorism as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Quran, and Muslim actions should be legally challenged with a multi-faceted force of Western Laws like Muslims wield against Americans and Westerners(Quran 9:5,29; 49:15; 60:4 and more). Like a Foreign Terrorist Organization(FTO) designated by the USA Secretary of State, Islam is a MUSLIM TERRORIST ORGANIZATION(MTO) fighting against Non-Muslims and NOT A PEACEFUL religion under Western Law because Islam funds, teaches, and promotes a Terrorist Criminal Organization with Muslims as Terrorists for Allah(Quran 9:5,29; 49:15 and more).
Under Islam and Islamic Law, Muslims have the legal right to terrorize Non-Muslims because neglecting this QURANIC DUTY is a Crime against Allah; Jihad means warfare against Non-Muslims to ESTABLISH ISLAM’S RELIGION(Quran 3:151; 9:5,29,111; Muslim Law Manual: “Reliance of the Traveller”, o9.0 and more).
More specifically, Islam, a terroristic-destructive way of life, is a Muslim Terrorist Ideology and Murderous, Criminal Enterprise of intolerance, continuous war, discrimination, segregation, supremacy, genocide, polygamy, propaganda, deceit, hatred, incitement, sedition, rape, terrorism, and violence against all Non-Muslims as taught in the Quran(Quran 2:216; 4:65,89,95; 5:14,64; 8:12,39,74; 9:5,21,29,36, 41,49,73,88,111,123; 21:92; 49:15; 60:4 and more).
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Not a bad idea, but Israel should target sunni jihadists in Lebanon as well. Otherwise any sunni jihadist who simply wants to ding Hizbullah would launch an attack on Israel, and Israel will respond against Hizbullah
PRCS USN (ret) says
Hizb Allah
Party of God
The mentality we’re up against.
ElderlyZionist says
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, just fire next time.
Pharaoh’s army got drownded,
Oh, Mary don’t you weep!
Cynthia says
Hit them so hard they can’t rise against you. Force is the only thing Islam knows. All the West should know this from history. Muslims believe negotiations or a realty is just a pause of war. There is no peace without total victory.
OLD GUY says
Absolutely correct. As long as the enemy feels the victory of surviving to fight again they will be back.
skeptiker says
Ich brauche keinen Gott, um das Vorgehen Israels für Richtig zu befinden. Sie verteidigen auch meine Freiheit, nämlich die Freiheit von Religion.
Luchtpint says
IMO, there is no such thing as “ethical” warfare in the ME, there are no red lines out there that should not be crossed.
What needs to be done needs to be done. Terrorists need to be obliterated !
JS says
Israel is doing as it should have been doing long ago. We can imagine that any other terror group could come along and the Lebanese would say ‘We can’t be caught doing that – but YOU can.’ So this is necessary and long overdue.
Alkflaeda says
Israel is now responding realistically to the relentless evil of Islamic terrorism. Prior to October 7th, intrinsically decent Israeli leaders projected their own decency onto the enemy (something that I believe may also account for the number of people, like Otto Frank, who stayed put in the face of Nazism – he didn’t factor the possibility of a treacherous informer into his decision not to leave Holland, because such evil was outside his experience, and maybe his worldview), but now they know that anything that terrorists do has to be assumed to be malignant till proved otherwise, rather than giving them the benefit of any doubt.
Western moral philosophy, with its assumption of the innate goodness of all human beings, has to bear a lot of the blame for the sheer scale of the Holocaust – at the time when Hitler was still stoppable, the electorate that could have stopped him at the ballot box, and European Jewry, which could have fled the threat that Nazism represented, did not conceive of the possibility that the Nazis might follow through on as evil a belief system as that depicted in Mein Kampf.