War against Hezbollah means ‘tens of thousands’ of Israeli deaths – but ‘ten times more’ in Lebanon

“Israel will not overlook this murderous attack,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response. “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price which it has not paid up to now.”

According to a report published by the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, Herzliya, however, the terror group is well prepared for such a conflict.

The 130-page document was released after three years of study that began well before October 7 and to which over 100 government officials, terrorism experts and former security officials contributed.

Before its release, the text was signed off by two IDF generals, Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash and Yitzhak Brik, the former head of Mossad’s intelligence division, Haim Tomer, and the former Home Front Commander of the Northern Front, Orit Adato, among others.

According to the analysis, as soon as the IDF launches military action against Hezbollah, the Shia militia will begin firing 2,500 to 3,000 missiles at Israel every day.

With 150,000 rockets stockpiled, the paramilitary has more than enough supplies for a conflict that the report estimates will last for 21 days.

In 2006, when Hezbollah and the IDF last went to war, the terror group had just 15,000 missiles and fired just 120 a day. With a range of just 20 kilometres, they could not reach Haifa, the largest city in the north, whereas attacks could now stretch hundreds of km away into the Negev.

While Israel has previously been able to block aerial attacks with its Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defence systems, under such a barrage they would be overwhelmed and their stockpiles depleted within days.

"The expectation of the public and of a significant portion of the leadership, that the Israeli Air Force and effective Israeli intelligence systems will succeed in preventing most of the rocket attacks on Israel, will be shattered,” the report states.

"This is also the case regarding the public’s belief that the threat of Israeli retaliation or a substantial Israeli attack on significant Lebanese assets will force Hezbollah to cease fire or significantly impair their ability to continue attacking Israeli territory."

According to The Economist, some estimate that tens of thousands of Israelis could be killed.

The Reichman University report claims that Hezbollah will attempt to disrupt Israel's air force by striking hangars storing F-16, F-35 and F-15 planes, while also targeting power plants, electricity infrastrcture and water desalination facilities.

Iranian-made suicide drones will meanwhile attack weapons factories and hospitals deep within Israel.

“We are not ready for a real war. We live in a fantasy world.”

Last month, Shaul Goldstein, the head of a government-owned power company, said that strikes from Lebanon could devastate Israel’s electricity grid.

“The bottom line is that after 72 hours, it is impossible to live in Israel,” he said. “We are not ready for a real war. We live in a fantasy world.”

According to a 2019 Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom) report, following the 2006 war Iran’s IRGC began a programme to upgrade the precision of Hezbollah’s rockets.

"Precision-guided missiles present a far greater strategic threat than unguided missiles previously deployed by Hezbollah, because they can target key Israeli infrastructure with fewer missiles,” it said.

"Because of Israel’s size and concentrated population and industry, damage to a small number of key infrastructure sites – eg power stations, military bases, and Ben Gurion International Airport – could have severe consequences. The more accurate the missiles, the fewer are required to get through Israel’s missile defences in order to damage or destroy the target.”

As the Jewish state is ravaged from the air, fighters from Hezbollah’s elite Redwan Force would seek to storm northern Israel and seize kibbutzim and military positions, the Reichman University report claims.

The IDF’s war in Lebanon will therefore be disrupted as forces are reallocated to defend and recapture Israeli territory.

The threat posed by Hezbollah far exceeds that of Hamas, said Professor Boaz Ganor, a counter-terror expert and president of Reichman University, who led the research.

Speaking to Israeli technology outlet CTech, he said: "In a war with Hezbollah [missile strikes] would continue unabated – numbers of rockets we have never experienced.

"They have an arsenal that consists of about 150,000 rockets and missiles, and our working assumption is that they would launch about 3,000 at us each day of the war, which according to our estimates, would last about 21 days.”

Following its publication, the report was presented to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, though Benjamin Netanyahu declined to meet with its authors, according to Ganor.

"I don't know how troubled [Gallant] was by the gaps that emerged from the report, compared to the IDF's stance, but he definitely instructed his staff to try to understand where they came from,” he said.

"Former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi met with us for four and a half hours. We presented him with the details, and he presented his opposing view, which I prefer not to elaborate on. The report also reached IDF Chief of Staff Halevi, but we didn't manage to meet because the war broke out."

Our assessment included many more casualties and greater damage to the economy,

Asked what gaps he believed exist in the IDF’s strategy for a full-scale war with Hezbollah, Ganor said his scenario was more “severe” than the Israeli military’s. "There wasn't a big difference in terms of the number of rockets that would be fired at us, but our assessment included many more casualties and greater damage to the economy,” he told CTech.

"The IDF’s scenario assumed that the state systems would know how to maintain the functioning of the economy, with the cornerstone of this assumption being that the local authorities would take matters into their own hands. We believe that the national systems are imposing responsibility on the local ones, thus absolving themselves of it.

"When we studied the issue with the local authorities, it was clear that they expected the national systems to take over in a major crisis. A situation has emerged in which each system puts its trust in the other. We believe that, given the extent of the damage that will occur, the national systems will find it very difficult to meet the expectations of local authorities."

The scale of the threat, Ganor argued, means that Israel is left in a position similar to the one it found itself in before the Yom Kippur War, in which the Jewish state suffered a surprise attack.

"One argues that Hamas cannot carry out an operation of this magnitude, just as we believed on Yom Kippur that the line of fortifications along the Suez Canal was impenetrable until the Egyptians breached the sand barriers with water cannons,” he said.

"There were not enough forces in the area on October 7 because of operational misconceptions. There was another problem with regard to the preparedness of the few units that were in the area that morning and did not enter their positions immediately."

He added: "Today our situation is different from what it was on October 6, mainly because we cannot be surprised by a ground invasion. But Hezbollah's missile stockpile is still there, and at the moment, the response to this threat is primarily Hezbollah's knowledge that whatever damage it manages to do to us will be ten times worse in Lebanon.

"One of the reasons that the organisation has not engaged in a large-scale war with Israel – but may do so later – is that it is clear to them what the consequences of Israel's response will be. A mutual deterrence has been created, expressed in a very limited war.”