Lebanon Front: Drones Define ‘War of Attrition’

Israeli strike targets a Hezbollah site (Reuters)
Israeli strike targets a Hezbollah site (Reuters)
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Lebanon Front: Drones Define ‘War of Attrition’

Israeli strike targets a Hezbollah site (Reuters)
Israeli strike targets a Hezbollah site (Reuters)

Israel has increased its operations in Lebanon, systematically targeting Hezbollah sites and assassinating field commanders. In response, Hezbollah has attacked key Israeli sites.

Both sides have been using new weapons, especially offensive drones, in this ongoing “war of attrition” since October 8.

Hezbollah is sticking to the current rules of engagement to avoid a wider war that Israel seems to be provoking. At the same time, Israel has expanded its airstrikes across southern Lebanon, including the outskirts of Sidon and the Bekaa Valley, areas linked to Hezbollah.

Recently, an Israeli airstrike in the Zahrani area of Sidon killed a Hezbollah member and two Syrian children. Israel has also increased raids on southern towns like Najjarieh and Adlousieh, which are near Sidon and far from the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Israel’s public broadcaster reported that military officials say Iran has provided Hezbollah with advanced air defense systems, based on images from a recently targeted military site.

In response, Hezbollah has deployed new weapons to demonstrate its combat capabilities and create a new “balance of terror” with Israel.

Hezbollah announced it used an armed drone with two S-5 missiles to attack a military site in Metula, northeastern Israel, before the drone exploded. The group also released a video showing the drone approaching the site, launching the missiles, and then exploding.

This introduction of new weapons by Hezbollah doesn’t mean they are preparing to fully open the southern front. Instead, it’s a message to Israel that any military action will be very costly.

Riad Kahwaji, Director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hezbollah has not used all its weapons from the start.

Instead, it has set its own rules of engagement, limiting its operations to a specific front with Israel.

Kahwaji pointed out that Hezbollah still uses Katyusha and Grad rockets, along with a more powerful modified Grad rocket called the “Burkan.”

He added that Hezbollah’s use of tactical weapons, like Kornet anti-tank missiles, is more effective. This is because the damage from Katyusha and Grad rockets is limited due to Israel’s Iron Dome, which can destroy these rockets in the air.

Hezbollah is filming its attacks on Israeli sites near the Lebanese border for two key reasons:

First, to show its supporters that it can strike back and inflict damage on Israel, responding to the assassinations of its leaders.

Second, to psychologically impact the Israeli side.

Recently, Hezbollah reported targeting an Israeli military position at Rwaisat al-Qarn in the Shebaa Farms with a guided missile, causing fires at the site.

Kahwaji explained that Hezbollah’s use of guided missiles and kamikaze drones has effectively caused Israeli casualties. He added that as targets get closer to the Lebanese border, Israel’s ability to intercept these attacks decreases.



Water Crisis Batters War-Torn Sudan as Temperatures Soar

People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
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Water Crisis Batters War-Torn Sudan as Temperatures Soar

People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)
People refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan in the Red Sea State of war-torn Sudan on April 9, 2024. (AFP)

War, climate change and man-made shortages have brought Sudan -- a nation already facing a litany of horrors -- to the shores of a water crisis.

"Since the war began, two of my children have walked 14 kilometers (nine miles) every day to get water for the family," Issa, a father of seven, told AFP from North Darfur state.

In the blistering sun, as temperatures climb past 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Issa's family -- along with 65,000 other residents of the Sortoni displacement camp -- suffer the weight of the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

When the first shots rang out more than a year ago, most foreign aid groups -- including the one operating Sortoni's local water station -- could no longer operate. Residents were left to fend for themselves.

The country at large, despite its many water sources including the mighty Nile River, is no stranger to water scarcity.

Even before the war, a quarter of the population had to walk more than 50 minutes to fetch water, according to the United Nations.

Now, from the western deserts of Darfur, through the fertile Nile Valley and all the way to the Red Sea coast, a water crisis has hit 48 million war-weary Sudanese who the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday said are already facing "the largest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet."

- No fuel, no water -

Around 110 kilometers east of Sortoni, deadly clashes in North Darfur's capital of El-Fasher, besieged by RSF, threaten water access for more than 800,000 civilians.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday said fighting in El-Fasher had killed at least 226.

Just outside the city, fighting over the Golo water reservoir "risks cutting off safe and adequate water for about 270,000 people", the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned.

Access to water and other scarce resources has long been a source of conflict in Sudan.

The UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the siege of El-Fasher end.

If it goes on, hundreds of thousands more people who rely on the area's groundwater will go without.

"The water is there, but it's more than 60 meters (66 yards) deep, deeper than a hand-pump can go," according to a European diplomat with years of experience in Sudan's water sector.

"If the RSF doesn't allow fuel to go in, the water stations will stop working," he told AFP, requesting anonymity because the diplomat was not authorized to speak to media.

"For a large part of the population, there will simply be no water."

Already in the nearby village of Shaqra, where 40,000 people have sought shelter, "people stand in lines 300 meters long to get drinking water," said Adam Rijal, spokesperson for the civilian-led General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.

In photos he sent to AFP, some women and children can be seen huddled under the shade of lonely acacia trees, while most swelter in the blazing sun, waiting their turn.

- Dirty water -

Sudan is hard-hit by climate change, and "you see it most clearly in the increase in temperature and rainfall intensity," the diplomat said.

This summer, the mercury is expected to continue rising until the rainy season hits in August, bringing with it torrential floods that kill dozens every year.

The capital Khartoum sits at the legendary meeting point of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers -- yet its people are parched.

The Soba water station, which supplies water to much of the capital, "has been out of service since the war began," said a volunteer from the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating wartime aid.

People have since been buying untreated "water off of animal-drawn carts, which they can hardly afford and exposes them to diseases," he told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Entire neighborhoods of Khartoum North "have gone without drinking water for a year," another local volunteer told AFP, requesting to be identified only by his first name, Salah.

"People wanted to stay in their homes, even through the fighting, but they couldn't last without water," Salah said.

- Parched and displaced -

Hundreds of thousands have fled the fighting eastward, many to the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea -- itself facing a "huge water issue" that will only get "worse in the summer months," resident al-Sadek Hussein worries.

The city depends on only one inadequate reservoir for its water supply.

Here, too, citizens rely on horse- and donkey-drawn carts to deliver water, using "tools that need to be monitored and controlled to prevent contamination," public health expert Taha Taher told AFP.

"But with all the displacement, of course this doesn't happen," he said.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the health ministry recorded nearly 11,000 cases of cholera -- a disease endemic to Sudan, "but not like this" when it has become "year-round," the European diplomat said.

The outbreak comes with the majority of Sudan's hospitals shut down and the United States warning on Friday that a famine of historic global proportions could unfold without urgent action.

"Health care has collapsed, people are drinking dirty water, they are hungry and will get hungrier, which will kill many, many more," the diplomat said.