The IDF conducted 30 hours of training for defensive battles across the entire northern border in the past week in preparation for a potential October 7-like attack from Lebanon.
One of the scenarios presented during the training tested the army’s ability to respond to a surprise attack on Nahariya, a major urban center with tens of thousands of residents, if hundreds of terrorists attempted to infiltrate by air, land, and sea to capture the city.
Simultaneously, forces dealt with simulated attempted takeovers of additional northern communities, IDF facilities, and outposts along the border.
On Wednesday night, the exercise entered its second phase, as the IDF shifted from defense to offense inside Lebanese territory.
During the night, troops were required to train for scenarios involving the prevention of hostages being smuggled from Israeli territory into Lebanon.
The army said it made no “concessions” for the participating forces, with the Ground Training Center designing extreme scenarios meant to push troops to their limits.
Exercises exposed areas of weakness
Among those taking part, there was a consensus that in some areas the exercise revealed failures.
“There were places where battalions failed their missions severely,” a senior officer said, noting that units sometimes had to be replaced mid-drill or recover from major setbacks.
The officer said massive coordination with the Israel Air Force was practiced, alongside smaller- and larger-scale engagements in various locations.
According to the IDF, the question remains as to whether Hezbollah can still challenge Israel in an extreme scenario.
“At this point, can they execute something like what we practiced as they could before?
Probably not,” the senior officer said. “But our starting point is to prepare for both the easy and the hardest possibilities. We can’t know what will happen.”
He added that many operational patterns were drilled, and credited the training center for pushing forces “from the plausible to the implausible” across air, land, and sea domains.
The IDF acknowledged that any Hezbollah attack may come as a surprise.
“The assumption is that it will happen unexpectedly – not because I don’t trust intelligence, but because intelligence can’t know everything,” the officer said. “That’s why all the scenarios were surprise attacks – to connect the dots into a complete picture.”
He noted that Hezbollah’s capabilities had been badly damaged but that “they are trying. Their [numbers] and coordination are now very limited.”
Organizers built scenarios based on Hezbollah’s pre-war abilities, even exaggerating its strength to test readiness.
“They came from the sea, from many directions, not just above the water,” the officer said. “At sea, the navy’s job is to stop them. On land, our continuous operations inside Lebanon give us two advantages – short-term scanning to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t rebuild, and long-term organization of the security buffer to make it harder for them to launch attacks.”
One of the commanders overseeing the exercise said the extreme scenarios were intentionally designed to overload the system.
“But there was no system collapse,” he said. “We have no choice but to learn from the failures of October 7. The system functions differently now. Even under pressure, they recovered.”
Northern Command officials said that since October 7, the IDF has dramatically changed its approach to securing the northern sector.
The army has deployed five forward outposts inside southern Lebanon, overlooking the terrain in front of Galilee communities, serving as a forward defense line.
Each community now has an upgraded local emergency squad reinforced with manpower and equipment, plus an attached infantry platoon. At the same time, the IDF has enhanced its firepower and lethality and created specialized battalions and rapid-response units designed to provide immediate defensive response.
When asked what worries him most, the senior officer replied, “It’s mainly what I don’t know, [both the] when and where. I try to assess the patterns and push the drills to the edge as much as possible.”