Hell From the Heavens
Longer-range Iranian arms are Israel's newest menace
The IDF's Herzog calls the current situation "Israel's Cuban missile crisis." Once limited to short-range attacks along the border, Hezbollah now possesses midrange rockets capable of hitting much of Israel. With names like the Fajr and Zelzal, they can hold far bigger warheads and cause immense damage to civilian areas. These are crude rockets, defense specialists stress, not missiles, which have guidance systems. "They are woefully inaccurate," says Doug Richardson, editor of Jane's Missiles and Rockets.
Surprise attack. Israeli officials quietly acknowledge that their intelligence is limited. They were stunned when an Iranian-made, radar-guided cruise missile nearly sank one of their ships off the Lebanese coast July 14. Syrian-made rockets have also turned up in Hezbollah's arsenal, including midrange units that fell last week on Nazareth and Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. The rockets contain a nasty innovation--warheads filled with ball bearings that spread like shrapnel--prompting criticism from Human Rights Watch.
When the Israelis pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah was thought to have an already impressive 6,000 rockets--most of them the unguided, short-range type fired out of tubes like artillery. In May, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted of having more than 12,000, and Israeli analysts agree. "All of northern occupied Palestine is within range," Nasrallah said, referring to Israel. "Its ports, its bases, its factories, and everything located there."
Israeli officials hope to deal all of Hezbollah a crippling blow, but their top priority, they say, is taking out much of its rocket inventory. They claim to have destroyed as much as half the group's arsenal, but outside analysts remain cautious. As U.S. forces found while hunting Scud missiles in the first Gulf War, taking out missile units by air can be tough. Still, the IDF may yet send in major ground forces, and military experts stress that Lebanon is not Iraq. The short distances that make Israel so vulnerable also work against Hezbollah; much of the campaign against it is playing out in an area less than half the size of Connecticut.
With Jennifer L. Jack
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