He fought for Israel in Lebanon. Here’s why he thinks its latest war will fail

April 3, 2026 — 2:00am

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London: When Ahron Bregman sees coverage of airstrikes in Lebanon, he remembers his six years in the Israel Defence Forces.

Bregman crossed into Lebanon as an artillery officer during the 1982 invasion that promised to bring peace to the country, only to see it end in a long occupation that deepened hatreds.

“Whenever the Israelis go into Lebanon, it ends in tears,” he says.

Bregman, now a senior teaching fellow at King’s College London, remembers the stench of dead soldiers in southern Lebanon and the relief of surviving an attack on his convoy when he drove north to Beirut on his second incursion into the country.

Based in the capital, he witnessed a brief moment of optimism when Lebanon elected a young president and former military commander, Bachir Gemayel, and opened the way for a peace deal. He saw disaster unfold when Syrians assassinated Gemayel three weeks later. The occupation lasted 18 years.

‘It was carnage’: How an Israeli raid tore apart this tiny Lebanese town

Now, as more than 1 million people flee their homes, Bregman believes Israel is repeating the mistakes of the past with its move to clear and control large parts of southern Lebanon. And he thinks it will fail to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militia that sends rockets into civilian communities in Israel.

There are two main goals in this operation, he says. The first is to drive people north and create a refugee crisis that places pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. The second is to turn the people of Lebanon against Hezbollah. That is why the IDF bombs towns and villages and tells their residents to flee north.

The difference this time, says Bregman, is that the IDF is bombing bridges across the Litani River, the northern marker of the “secure zone”........

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