The “party” is changing its tactics to try to reduce human losses

Nazir Reda wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat:

On the battlefield in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is testing “new tactics,” including developing the types of weapons it uses in battle, and new technologies, with the aim of reducing human losses among the party’s ranks, whose fighters “adapted to the field.”

The party has significantly increased its use of drones and guided missiles since the beginning of the week, targeting Israeli soldiers’ gathering points, it says, in addition to targeting Israeli settlements and towns in the north with large bursts of “Katyusha” rockets, coinciding with a new escalation in the field that was accompanied by faltering negotiations in Cairo. To end the Gaza war.

Field sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party’s fighters “have begun to follow new military strategies in the field,” explaining that they “rely on new techniques and weapons that have been introduced into the battle, and are being adopted to carry out bombing of deeper areas, and to carry out specific targets based on internal security information.” », referring to the adoption of marches and complex attacks in which the party attacks concentration centers for Israeli soldiers, which resulted in the killing of at least 3 Israeli soldiers last month, the most violent of which was in the Arab al-Aramsha attack in the Western Galilee.

The sources who keep pace with the dynamics of the battle in the south said that the party’s fighters “adapted to the field,” in reference to the nature of the war, which obligated them to fight at a distance of between 5 and 7 kilometers along the border with Israel, and required a permanent presence of fighters, in exchange for constant Israeli marches. The skies of the region, which is a different front from all the wars that the party fought in the past, say experts in military affairs.

In addition, the party intended to “change military tactics,” with the aim of “reducing human losses,” according to the sources, by “introducing new technologies that had not been used before,” noting that these technologies “contributed to reducing human losses and protecting the fighters who were killed.” They have been deployed in the field since the beginning of the war,” without disclosing the nature of these techniques, which “only the party’s fighters themselves know.”

Until Tuesday, no losses had been recorded for three weeks among the party’s fighters, which often mourned fighters killed in the field, and their number reached approximately 255 fighters. In the first phase, its fighters were subjected to deadly attacks, especially in the first three weeks inside the field, through Israeli marches that did not leave the skies of the south.

After that stage, Israel resorted late last year to targeting homes and military centers with violent raids launched by Israeli aircraft and fighters, which led to the killing of many of the party’s fighters.

In a third phase, the party also suffered losses as a result of assassinations carried out by Israeli marches targeting fighters. This is an Israeli activity that declined after the party responded to the assassination of an engineer by targeting his car in the town of Adloun, by targeting the vicinity of the city of Acre 3 weeks ago with assault marches.

Since the start of the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, at least 390 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 255 Hezbollah members and more than 70 civilians, according to a tally prepared by Agence France-Presse, based on party statements and official Lebanese sources.

The Israeli side, for its part, counted the deaths of 13 soldiers and 9 civilians.