The Israel Protection Forces on Thursday wrapped up a significant navy train in Cyprus, simulating a navy floor offensive deep inside Lebanon in a possible conflict in opposition to the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
The Mediterranean island was chosen each for its Lebanon-like terrain — mountainous alongside a coastal plain — and its proximity to Israel. The drill simulated numerous difficulties in a floor assault, equivalent to meals, water, and ammunition provide; communication points; and the final issues in working in unfamiliar territory.
“The primary problem we ready for was accumulating troops,” mentioned Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, commander of the 98th Paratroopers Division, which led the train.
Winter mentioned 1000’s of troops had been introduced in to play the Lebanese aspect, utilizing boats, planes, and helicopters. “We arrived within the subject with nice depth. We unfold out the troops, and so they started working in opposition to key areas and vital targets we recognized as being necessary to defeat,” he mentioned, referring to mock enemy navy websites and rocket launching grounds.
In keeping with Winter, troops performed raids with a major distance between every “difficult their capacity to work whereas disconnected.” Troops operated beneath the belief they’d not have communication with headquarters, and as an alternative must depend on contacting one another utilizing satellite-based communication means.
The troops of the 98th division additionally practiced working alongside particular forces in unfamiliar territory, in addition to responding to shock occasions.
Israeli troops maintain a significant drill in Cyprus, in a picture printed by the navy on June 2, 2022. (Israel Protection Forces)
However the final purpose of the train was to simulate halting Hezbollah rocket hearth on Israel amid a significant escalation, by means of a floor offensive in Lebanon. In keeping with navy officers, the one technique to obtain such a purpose was to be “considerably current” within the areas the place assaults are being launched from, protecting the enemy removed from the border.
Israeli troops maintain a significant drill in Cyprus, in a picture printed by the navy on June 2, 2022. (Israel Protection Forces)
The Iran-backed Lebanese terror group has lengthy represented the IDF’s most important navy menace, with an estimated arsenal of practically 150,000 rockets and missiles that may attain anyplace in Israel.
In keeping with a current navy evaluation, Israeli cities may very well be bombarded with 1,500 rockets a day and the loss of life toll may shortly attain into the lots of ought to conflict with Hezbollah escape.
The IDF mentioned a navy marketing campaign would probably result in the deaths of 1000’s of individuals in Lebanon, each Hezbollah fighters and civilians.
Hezbollah fired greater than 4,000 rockets on Israeli communities within the 2006 Second Lebanon Battle, whereas Israel bombarded targets in southern Lebanon. The month of preventing killed an estimated 1,200 Lebanese (Lebanon says most had been civilians; the IDF mentioned at the least half had been fighters) in addition to 44 Israeli civilians and 121 Israeli troopers.
Earlier IDF estimates have put the variety of rockets that would goal Israel every day in a future conflict at 1,000-3,000.
Hezbollah fighters stand atop a automobile mounted with a mock rocket, as they parade throughout a rally to mark the seventh day of Ashoura, within the southern village of Seksakiyeh, Lebanon, on October 9, 2016. (Mohammed Zaatari/AP)
To reduce long-range rocket hearth on Israel, through the drill troops had been tasked with raiding enemy command facilities and different strategic websites, to make sure correct management over areas used to launch assaults.
Not like bouts of preventing with Gaza Strip-based terrorists, which have relied closely on air campaigns, a conflict in Lebanon would greater than probably need to make use of a floor operation, in accordance with current assessments.
Israeli troops maintain a significant drill in Cyprus, in a picture printed by the navy on June 2, 2022. (Israel Protection Forces)
On the identical time, particular forces — together with the elite Yahalom fight engineering unit — practiced demolishing what the navy known as “crucial enemy infrastructure.”
The engineering unit additionally simulated clearing explosives and different obstructions, in addition to demolishing enemy tunnels. Hezbollah is believed to have a community of tunnels in some areas of Lebanon, a few of which had been destroyed by Israel in 2018 after they crossed into Israel.
Navy models simulated defensive and offensive maneuvers at sea, along with transporting and rescuing troops amid the drill.
Israeli troops maintain a significant drill in Cyprus, in a picture printed by the navy on June 2, 2022. (Israel Protection Forces)
Cyprus didn’t instantly take part within the train. Nonetheless, Protection Minister Benny Gantz and IDF chief Aviv Kohavi hailed the “strategic alliance” between the international locations through the drill.
The IDF sees the Jap Mediterranean area as an space of serious curiosity with the intention to preserve safety stability, the place “strategic cooperation” with companions — equivalent to Cyprus and Greece — is of excessive significance, officers mentioned.
Additionally through the ultimate week of the foremost monthlong train — dubbed Chariots of Fireplace — the Air Power simulated airstrikes on Iranian nuclear services, over the Mediterranean Sea.
The Chariots of Fireplace drill was the navy’s largest train in a long time.
It addressed the opportunity of sudden occasions erupting in a number of theaters on the identical time, whereas specializing in preventing the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli troops maintain a significant drill in Cyprus, in a picture printed by the navy on June 2, 2022. (Israel Protection Forces)
The Dwelling Entrance Command practiced a simulation final week during which 80 websites are closely broken in rocket assaults with some 300 casualties, throughout a several-day flare-up with Hezbollah.
The drills have additionally raised “fairly just a few” points with the best way the military handles logistics, in accordance with the pinnacle of the IDF Technological and Logistics Directorate, Brig. Gen. Pini Ben Moyal. He mentioned the navy would study these points and discover methods to deal with them, with out elaborating.
Navy officers mentioned the drills had been geared toward elevating the competence and readiness of troops and high brass for conflict on a number of fronts, in addition to coordination with different emergency organizations, native authorities, and authorities ministries.
