Israel to hold massive war drill simulating war with Hizballah

Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers will begin a huge military exercise on Tuesday simulating conflict with the Lebanese Hizballah movement, the largest war drill in over two decades.

The drill will last 10 days and simulate "scenarios we'll be facing in the next confrontation with Hizballah", an Israeli defense source said Monday.

Thousands of reserve soldiers, aircraft, boats and submarines will be deployed, while the army's canine unit will also participate.

The Israeli army will also set up two field hospitals and test unmanned trucks and helicopters to evacuate casualties.

Preparations for the drill have been ongoing for more than a year and a half, Israeli military sources said.

A military source told the Times of Israel that the objective of the simulation would be to "vanquish" Hizballah.

The last time the Israeli military held a drill of this scale was in 1998 when it simulated a war with the Syrian army for a week.

Hizballah's role in the war in neighbouring Syria has raised tensions with Israel, with top officials issuing overt threats about the scale of any future conflict.

In July, former Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon said if war broke out Israel would destroy Lebanon's infrastructure.

Earlier this year, a top military general warned that Israel's military would strike Lebanon hard and fast in case of conflict, warning Lebanese civilians of a high potential of "collateral damage" if they did not flee any future fighting.

In 2006, a month-long war between Israel and Hizballah killed more than 1,200 Lebanese civilians, displaced over one million, and devastated infrastructure in the country.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese homes were destroyed or damaged by intense Israeli artillery and naval bombardments. 

A UN-backed ceasefire agreement to end the war expanded the mission of UN peacekeeping troops in the Lebanon, raising UNIFIL troops to 10,000.

The UN Security Council last week extended the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon for another year amid pressure from the United States for the UN force to take action against Hizballah.