A senior officer in the Israeli Air Force, who is familiar with the details of the war plans, warned in a letter he sent to members of the General Staff in recent days against “launching military operations at any cost,” and asked them to clarify to the political level that the Israeli army is not ready for a continuous war in Lebanon. And waging a war on Lebanon “will lead us to a strategic catastrophe greater than October 7,” according to what Channel 13 military analyst Alon Ben David reported in his weekly article in the Maariv newspaper today, Friday.

Ben David stressed that “the army is not now ready for a large-scale war in Lebanon, and is not currently able to achieve a major achievement against Hezbollah and change the reality in the north in a dramatic way. In the best case scenario, a war in the north will end in a bad settlement reached at a painful price. In the event that More plausibly, the war will not end, and Israel will find itself in a continuous war of attrition, which will paralyze life in most parts of the country, and without the ability to resolve it.

He pointed out that, “Since its founding 76 years ago, the Israeli army has not been prepared for a war that lasts for nine months, but rather as an overwhelming army that quickly calls up reserve forces, wages a war, resolves it within a short period, and returns to the normal situation.”

All the military plans drawn up by the Israeli army before October 7 were for a war that would last for a few weeks. "No one expected a war that would last for a year or years."

He added, "The army was not prepared for a long war like this, neither in terms of ammunition stocks, nor in terms of the depletion of personnel and tools. This week, I visited one of the two logistics centers that the Israeli army established inside the Gaza Strip. The forces are exhausted, physically and psychologically. This war has consumed more ammunition to date." "From the army's estimates in all its war plans."

Ben David continued, “Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, the Israeli army has kept quantities of ammunition allocated for the war in Lebanon, and their size increased during the war. Little by little, the realization is creeping into the army that we are in an era of long wars, without a resolution, and there is doubt as to whether this stock of ammunition will be sufficient.” For a long war, the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) and the rest of the war cabinet receive weekly reports on the status of the army’s ammunition stock.”

He considered that "when the prime minister creates an unnecessary crisis with the United States over the supply of ammunition, he is fully aware of the meaning of that: this crisis is intended to give him an excuse and accuse others of the reason why he does not initiate a war in Lebanon."

According to him, “Netanyahu realizes that a war against Hezbollah at this time will incur greater costs and fewer achievements. The United States will most likely be on our side in a war like this, but even with American support, there is doubt whether the Israeli army, in its current state, can achieve a corresponding achievement.” Hezbollah justifies the price that Israeli society will pay, and this is before talking about the lack of preparedness of the civilian home front.”