As part of the Israeli army’s new doctrine, based on the belief that “we must not wait for an enemy attack, but preempt it with a strike of our own,” and after drawing lessons from mistakes in the recent war, forces in the north have completed new military drills near the Lebanese border.

Israeli Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir said his forces were more prepared than before to deliver crushing blows, and that he had drawn up a plan to expand the army’s capacity and capabilities to carry out such operations on all fronts.

Zamir singled out the Lebanese front as an example.

Although Israeli media described comments by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem as “a message of reassurance,” because he boasted that the group had not been dragged into a war with Israel, Zamir reiterated his commitment to the new doctrine of launching a preemptive strike.

A matter of time
According to the daily Maariv, “assessments in Tel Aviv are that the entire Iranian axis is preparing for another war with Israel to erase the shame of the blows it suffered from Israeli forces over the past two years.”

The Israeli army sees such a war as inevitable and says the only question is timing, therefore it will not wait and will strike first.

The paper said Iran is unlikely to rush into war now, but is directing its proxies to prepare and supplying them with what they need.

Hezbollah, it reported, has smuggled and produced large quantities of rockets, Hamas has begun to rebuild its shattered military strength in Gaza and resumed forming cells in the West Bank, Iraqi Hezbollah is preparing to participate in a future conflict unlike in the last war, and the Houthis are openly declaring they will resume firing more advanced missiles at Israel.

For that reason, the Israeli army has continued daily strikes in Lebanon and Gaza despite the ceasefire.

Multi-division drills
On that basis, the northern front and the West Bank this week held multi-division exercises aimed at conducting preemptive combat operations. General Staff summaries say the army is at a very high state of readiness, “as if war could break out tomorrow.”

Defense by attack
In meetings with field commanders, Zamir also discussed defensive operations under the doctrine of “defense through offense,” meaning responding to any attack on Israel with counterstrikes and turning it into a war on enemy territory.

He said the army was undergoing an operational and doctrinal revolution in its combat concepts, after learning from the failures of October 7, 2023, and the mistakes of subsequent operations.

“The enemy will try again to carry out attacks on Israel similar to Hamas’s assault, on all fronts,” Zamir said, adding the army is ready to prevent such offensives, destroy attacking forces, sow confusion among them and trap them in multiple ambushes.

He said Israeli forces would rely heavily on cyber capabilities and technology “in ways that will shock the enemy.”

The army has devoted vast resources to supporting the air force as its main arm, while not underestimating the importance of other weapons, particularly commando units of various kinds.

Emergency budget
Sources at Israel’s finance ministry said Zamir submitted an “urgent and pressing” request for an emergency budget to replace the very old Apache helicopters operating in the north with modern combat helicopters, and to double their number.

Escalation in south Lebanon
The Israeli army continued to escalate operations in southern Lebanon on Thursday, launching airstrikes on areas in Nabatieh and Tyre that caused a number of injuries of unknown condition.

Israeli artillery shelled an open area near the town of Meiss al-Jabal overnight on Wednesday.

The army said the strikes hit an underground weapons depot and infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, claiming the sites were built near civilian areas and accusing Hezbollah of using residents as human shields.

It also alleged Hezbollah was rebuilding facilities across Lebanon, and that the presence of those structures and the group’s activity amounted to a breach of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.