Israel - Lebonon

Israel - Lebonon

How would you characterize Israeli intelligence operations in Lebanon?

In the years since Israel ended its military occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel's intelligence community watched warily as Hezbollah built up its military presence in the region. When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006, the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly, based on years of extensive intelligence gathering. "Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel".

The problem of intelligence gathering capabilities intensified further with the outbreak of war. As is usual in combat situations, the intelligence that is available to the troops before the war, a great deal of which has been built up meticulously over years, goes up in smoke as soon as the troops go into action. The bank of targets that has been prepared diminishes after the first wave of attacks. There is a tactical intelligence difficulty in pinpointing new targets during the fighting, until the forward combat elements actually make contact with the enemy. The conduct of the battle, from there on, depends on tactical intelligence, mostly real-time in nature, as targets come into focus by the advancing troops, in modern warfare, through tactical intelligence elements, such as TUAV, electro-optical observation etc.

Mossad can certainly high marks for much of the high precision intelligence, which enabled the air attacks to pinpoint Hezbollah medium rocket sites and neutralize most of them during the 48 hours, which saved most of Israel's major towns from these larger rockets. Air force intelligence also performed in clock-work fashion, identifying Hezbollah rocket launchers seconds after firing, which were then destroyed by immediate air attack through "cab-rank" cruising air assets, in the suspected environment. The unique rapid reaction "sensor-to-shooter kill-chain" tactics, similar to performance in the Gaza Strip, paid off handsomely in Lebanon 2006.

IDF Military Intelligence gathering units ( HUMINT) and signal intelligence( SIGINT) were tasked with obtaining vital intelligence on Hezbollah forward deployments in South Lebanon and their work was in high demand by forward troops, during the initial stages of the war. But all this was not sufficient: For ...