Prepared to face any situation, IDF forces are training to defend the northern border against Hezbollah. This exclusive simulation shows how Israeli soldiers would confront Hezbollah terrorists in battle.
Hezbollah is a Shiite proxy force that takes orders from Iran. It formed during the years in which the IDF controlled a swathe of southern Lebanon which served as a security belt from 1985 to 2000, to keep Israel's northern communities out of range of terrorist rockets. Hizbullah's guerrilla warfare against the IDF, combined with leftist campaigns within Israel, succeeded in causing the IDF to withdraw from the security belt in 2000.
Since then, Hezbollah has amassed its forces and built a formidable array of tens of thousands of missiles that can strike most parts of Israel. In 2006, Israel fought an inconclusive war with the organization, decimating its strongholds in southern Beirut from the air but taking a pounding from its missiles.
Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has spent most of the years since then hiding from a possible IDF strike, but maintains a defiant and threatening pose. The IDF's disappointing performance led it to rethink its training methods and go back to the basics as far as strategic and tactical thought are concerned.
Hezbollah now faces a new enemy inside Lebanon, in the form of the Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime. The rebels have been striking Hezbollah neighborhoods in Beirut with car bombs in revenge for the Shiite militia's aid to Assad in the Syrian civil war.