Most Lebanese are preparing for another, wider war between Hezbollah and Israel. Many of them see this war as inevitable and believe it will target the capital, Beirut, and not just the south of the country. The likelihood of an expanded war increased recently due to the noticeable escalation in border clashes and exchanges of shelling between Hezbollah and the Israeli army during the first half of June 2024.
These clashes began directly after Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. For months following the October 7, 2023 attack, the clashes were limited to Hezbollah targeting Israeli military sites near the border with rocket or artillery fire, and Israel responding with equivalent or slightly stronger strikes. Despite both sides’ interests in avoiding a full-scale war and confining the confrontation to a limited area south of the Litani River in Lebanon and a small strip on the Israeli side, Israel exceeded these boundaries several times. They attacked targets north of the Litani, and even in the Beqaa Valley, assassinating prominent Hezbollah leaders and other resistance groups in Lebanon.
On June 11, Israel assassinated veteran Hezbollah leader Taleb Sami Abdullah and three of his comrades during a meeting in the village of Joya in southern Lebanon. According to Hezbollah figures, Israel has killed at least 350 Hezbollah fighters since the beginning of the Gaza war and the clashes in southern Lebanon, but Taleb was certainly the highest-ranking military official they managed to assassinate. In response, Hezbollah units in the south launched hundreds of rockets and shells on Israeli targets over two consecutive days, causing extensive destruction in northern Israeli towns and military sites and igniting fires over hundreds of square kilometers.
As expected, the reciprocal escalation led to further escalation. U.S. presidential envoy Amos Hochstein made a shuttle visit to Israel and Lebanon on June 17-18, during which Lebanese sources said he issued a direct warning to the Lebanese Prime Minister that the United States would drop its opposition to an Israeli war on Lebanon, and that the Israelis were actually preparing for this war unless Hezbollah began withdrawing its forces from south of the Litani. On June 22, U.S. officials leaked to the media that the United States would assist in defending Israel if a full-scale war broke out on the Lebanese front, without deploying American forces in the region.
Within Israel, opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Netanyahu of failing to protect the residents of the northern border area and being unable to ensure their return to their towns and villages and their normal lives. It was notable that the Israeli Chief of Staff, amid the escalating diplomatic efforts to contain the situation, announced after meeting with army leaders on the northern front that he had approved a war plan to deter Hezbollah and secure the northern border.
So, is another war on Lebanon inevitable and imminent? Is there any interest for either side, or both, in starting this war? Or has the situation already spiraled out of both parties’ control?
Hezbollah: Limited Confrontation
There is no evidence that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation undertaken by Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades on October 7, 2023, was carried out with prior coordination with Hezbollah. Even the Biden administration believes that Hezbollah had no direct involvement in the operation. The truth is that Hezbollah, which maintains close ties with Iran and usually adheres to the Iranian strategic framework, was pursuing a policy of calm in the months leading up to “Al-Aqsa Flood,” as calm was the main characteristic of Iran’s policy in the region and in its relations with the U.S. The party’s leadership might not have welcomed Hamas’ escalation move with “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Hezbollah was likely surprised by the scale and brutality of Israel’s response to Hamas’ action.
However, Hezbollah, like Iran, is concerned with maintaining its influence in the region and preserving its image as a leading force of resistance against Israel. To maintain this influence and image, Hezbollah chose to engage in limited participation in the war, with a ceiling that enhances its resistance status without leading to a full-scale war in Lebanon. This was the approach Hezbollah followed during the previous months of the Gaza war, emphasizing that its efforts were supportive of the resistance in Gaza and that it was not seeking to expand the scope and level of the confrontation. It also assured that it would immediately halt its military activities once a permanent ceasefire in Gaza was achieved.
But Hezbollah’s disciplined approach was not without consequences. On the Lebanese side, Israeli shelling displaced at least 150,000 residents from southern Lebanon to areas further inland and caused extensive destruction in Lebanese border villages. On the Israeli side, it is believed that over 100,000 residents of the northern border areas have evacuated their towns and villages since last October, and there has been destruction in Israeli border towns as well as in Israeli military sites and camps, some of which are of significant surveillance importance.
For the first seven months of the war, it was Israel that chose escalation, whether by expanding the scope of the confrontation beyond the Litani River or by targeting high-ranking Hezbollah leaders, which did not stop even after Taleb Abdullah’s assassination. Despite French and American mediations quickly launched to contain the situation on the Lebanese front and prevent a full-scale war, the Israelis calculated that inflicting painful losses on Hezbollah and its popular base would force it to withdraw its forces from south of the Litani, Israel’s main demand. However, the Israeli escalatory strikes did not deter Hezbollah, nor did the mediations succeed.
The day after the U.S. presidential envoy’s warning to the Lebanese government, Hezbollah released a highly detailed and clear video of the Haifa port and the Israeli military and quasi-military sites in and around it, which the party claimed was filmed by one of its drones. It was clear that Hezbollah wanted to show the Israelis and their Western allies that Israel’s defense systems were not a guarantee against the party’s capabilities. Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, was equally clear the day after the video release, stating in a speech at Taleb Abdullah’s funeral that the party’s military capabilities were much greater than the Israelis estimated and that in the event of a full-scale war, Hezbollah would fight without limits or constraints. Lebanese commentators close to Hezbollah reiterated in various media the extent of the party’s capabilities, its technical superiority, and its ability to cause extensive and widespread destruction in Israel.
This all indicates that Hezbollah remains firm in its initial stance on the Gaza war; it still views its confrontation with Israel as supporting Gaza, not seeking a broader war on the Lebanese front. In the face of full-scale war threats from Western mediators or Israeli officials, Hezbollah is sending continuous messages to all concerned that another Israeli war on Lebanon would be costly for the Israelis. The problem is that Israel is a state that cannot live with a serious threat in its vicinity; the more serious and substantial the threat posed by Hezbollah, the higher the likelihood of war.
The Israeli Position: Timing the Comprehensive Confrontation
The escalating threat posed by Hezbollah, and the tangible seriousness of this threat daily in northern Israel, pushes towards a consensus among Israeli political and security elites on the need to deal with the party sooner or later. During the first months of the Gaza war, the Israeli leadership thought that deploying three divisions on the Lebanese front and promising harsh and painful responses to Hezbollah attacks, along with the images of destruction in Gaza’s cities and towns seen by Hezbollah leaders, would pressure the party to positively engage with American and French mediators and withdraw to north of the Litani. But neither airstrikes and assassinations nor mediators’ efforts succeeded in softening Hezbollah’s stance and stopping its attacks.
What happened was that Hezbollah showed unwavering determination to link the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border with that in Gaza and demonstrated a strategic sense by targeting surveillance centers in northern Israel, as well as high military and technical capabilities sufficient to harm vital Israeli targets, both civilian and military. Although it is difficult for the Israelis to estimate whether Hezbollah has means to target central and southern Israel, and with what degree of accuracy, what the Israelis certainly know is enough to conclude the necessity of addressing the threat posed by Hezbollah. However, Israel, as in most junctures of this war, seems divided over the nature, method, and timing of the confrontation with Hezbollah.
There are voices within the Israeli opposition, retired military and security leaders, and former prime ministers (possibly echoing circles within the army leadership and the security establishment), saying that now it is crucial to avoid igniting a full-scale war with Lebanon. They call for reaching an agreement to end the war in Gaza, which would necessarily lead to peace in northern Israel, and waiting for better regional and international conditions to resolve the Hezbollah challenge. They believe that the case of Hezbollah, like that of Hamas, requires inflicting defeat not only on the fighters but also on their popular base, which would result in significant civilian losses in Lebanon and widespread destruction in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and the Beqaa Valley. If the war in Gaza has led to a widespread shift in global public opinion and international legal and rights institutions against Israel, another war on Lebanon would further isolate Israel and undermine its international standing.
Currently, Israel urgently needs to restore its international position to prevent Iran from advancing towards acquiring nuclear weapons, or at least the capability to do so within a short period. Following the criticisms directed at Iran in the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran’s move to operate additional large numbers of centrifuges at the Fordow and Natanz facilities, raising their production of enriched uranium to levels almost sufficient for making nuclear bombs. This necessitates vigorous international efforts and a better international position for Israel to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state. Without this, these voices say, Israel itself will have to engage in a war with Iran, which has uncertain outcomes and consequences.
They also point out that the Israeli army, which has been worn down by the Gaza war and has revealed many of its weaknesses, is not yet ready for a war with Hezbollah, whose capabilities far exceed those the army faced in Gaza. Additionally, given the U.S. elections, it is difficult to be certain about
obtaining American support during this period.
However, the Israeli right-wing government, led by Netanyahu, which includes extremist elements, remains committed to the idea of Israel as a state that cannot live with any serious threat in its vicinity. This government sees Hezbollah’s capabilities and its attacks on Israeli military sites and northern border villages as a direct threat to Israel’s stability and future. It feels compelled to deal with this threat, even at the cost of a full-scale war, irrespective of international and public opinion consequences.
The timing of such a confrontation is crucial. Hezbollah is currently preoccupied with the war in Gaza, which makes it less prepared to confront Israel fully on the Lebanese front. Additionally, Israel’s northern front population, already evacuated, is not suffering the effects of war as much as in other periods. Israel’s current right-wing government, already unpopular with significant international powers and critical segments of the U.S. administration, has little to lose if it goes to war with Lebanon.
The idea of an expanded war on Lebanon might be less of a deterrent now than at other times due to the already existing significant global criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and the understanding that Hezbollah is a significant threat that needs addressing sooner or later. Moreover, Hezbollah’s capabilities and their continuous attacks on Israeli military sites and the northern border villages pose a direct threat to Israel’s stability and future.
Conclusion: An Escalation Inevitable?
The answer to whether another war on Lebanon is inevitable and imminent lies in the interplay of strategic calculations and tactical decisions made by both Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah’s firm stance in supporting Gaza and linking its actions in Lebanon to the situation in Gaza suggests that they are not seeking a broader war but are prepared to escalate if necessary. On the other hand, Israel’s strategic need to address Hezbollah’s growing threat and its potential inability to tolerate Hezbollah’s continuous attacks may drive it towards a full-scale confrontation.
Both sides are weighing their strategic interests, and the actions taken in the coming days and weeks will determine whether the current escalation spirals into a wider war. The situation remains fluid, with the potential for either de-escalation through diplomatic channels or a full-scale war if the current trends of escalation continue.
