The IDF has avoided striking Beirut amid negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, but elsewhere in Lebanon — especially in the south on both sides of the Litani River — it has continued an extensive campaign against rocket launchers while providing air support to ground forces no longer constrained by the war with Iran.
The heaviest fighting is now focused on what Israeli officials describe as the “Bint Jbeil pocket,” where dozens of Hezbollah operatives, including members of the group’s elite Radwan force, were surrounded and trapped in the town. Hezbollah had massed a sizable force there for what was intended to be an attack into Israeli territory.
Hezbollah operatives surrendering and throwing down their weapons in Bint Jbeil
(Video: IDF)
But the operatives were caught off guard. They did not detect the quiet advance of Israeli troops, who moved in and encircled them from three sides. By the time Israeli forces sealed the area from the west, it was too late. Several dozen terrorists who tried to flee were killed, and those who remained were left fighting for their lives in what was described as an increasingly desperate battle.
Some Hezbollah operatives were filmed surrendering and throwing down their weapons. But surrender carries a severe stigma in the Shiite religious ethos, seen as a humiliation worse than death. Hezbollah’s leadership is now trying to secure a ceasefire in an effort to extract the trapped men, but so far has failed.
The fighting, however, has also come at a cost to Israeli troops. Although Israeli forces are advancing with massive fire support from both the ground and the air in an effort to reduce casualties, the battle is unfolding in a densely built urban area similar to parts of the Gaza Strip, making close-quarters clashes difficult to avoid.
The most dangerous situations are those in which Hezbollah operatives prepare ambushes in advance, knowing they are unlikely to leave the battle alive.