The regional destabilization resulting from the war on Gaza on the wake of October 7, 2023, did not spare Lebanon from its spillover effects, with daily armed confrontations between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Forces. It led to a highly volatile situation, increasing the risk of an all-out war between the two belligerents, as well as a potential regional escalation involving Iran and the USA. The recent events on the Lebanese-Israeli borders represent a dangerous step towards such a scenario.
A Ravaging Medium-Intensity Conflict
In terms of consequences, the ongoing war caused a death toll of at least 550 casualties on the Lebanese side as of August. Most of these casualties are Hezbollah – and other Lebanese and Palestinian – fighters, while over 130 are civilians. On the Israeli side, the death toll rose to around 50, half of whom were civilians. The conflict has also led to the internal displacement of around 100,000 inhabitants from both sides. Footage and satellite images from southern Lebanese villages along the border attest to a high level of destruction. In parallel, Israeli shelling caused the burning of 4,000 hectares of forests and olive orchards, many of which were caused by the use of white phosphorus ammunition.
These developments add to Lebanon’s catastrophic situation characterized by the 2019 economic and financial collapse coupled with an ongoing political deadlock. The political elite’s inability to address the multi-leveled crisis through the implementation of adequate reforms has completely paralyzed an eroding public administration and pushed more than 80% of the population into poverty. All this is occurring amidst an ongoing and mismanaged refugee crisis, illustrated by the presence of more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011, adding to roughly half a million Palestinian refugees present since 1948. Despite the pessimistic figures, the country has maintained an absurd semblance of stability, defined by the coexistence of parallel realities, with war alongside normality.
Hezbollah at the Frontline
Lebanon’s involvement in the conflict started when Hezbollah – the heavily armed and Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militant group – opened a front that it declared to be in “solidarity with the Palestinian resistance” against Israel on Lebanon’s southern border as early as October 8, only one day after the Hamas attacks. In fact, Hezbollah had no other option than engaging in this conflict, responding to the doctrine of the “unity of fronts” developed by the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, which refers to the regional overarching network of allies that includes Iran and its proxies consisting of various Islamist non-state armed groups such as Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis, Hamas, and several Iraqi Shia militias. The doctrine refers to the launch of attacks against Israel simultaneously from several fronts, including Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or even Iraq and Yemen. Thus, opening a solidarity front in south Lebanon aimed at attracting the Israeli army away from Gaza, dragging it into a months-long war of attrition.
However, the Lebanese militant group has seemed perplexed since the beginning by its engagement in a war it was somehow forced into. The strongest evidence for this statement can be initially found in both the timing and the content of Hassan Nasrallah’s – the party’s secretary general – first speech following the events of October 7. The speech was delivered on November 3, almost one month after the attacks. The long-lasting silence was quite intriguing, knowing the highly talkative character of the leader who usually does not miss an occasion to comment on the news instantly. Moreover, Nasrallah seemed to disengage the group’s responsibility by declaring that the party was unaware of the Hamas October 7 attacks beforehand, and stressed that they were 100% Palestinian in their decision and execution. Obviously, these were all clear indicators of the party’s initial aim to maintain a balance between fulfilling its resistance rhetoric and avoiding a large-scale conflict. Ultimately, its primary goal is still to preserve itself, as it is for its Iranian sponsor, which prefers to save its potential for critical situations. Dragging Lebanon into a large-scale war would not only be a risk to its military survival but also to its political future by losing popular support, especially among Christians. In addition, Hezbollah opened the front – over which it otherwise holds exclusivity – for various other armed factions, such as Hamas’s Lebanese wing or the Sunni Lebanese Islamist Party. Later, and throughout the conflict, the militant group continuously showed itself to be abiding by the tacit rules of engagement while prudently – and only reactively – moving up on the escalation ladder and constantly demonstrating restraint, indicating again its unwillingness to engage in a full-fledged war.
Hezbollah’s Goals and Evolving Engagement
On the battlefield, Hezbollah’s dangerous game has evolved into an escalating war of attrition with clear military tactics that evolved under three main phases, interacting with Israeli warfare.
The first phase can be best described as minimal engagement with the choice of targets along the borderline. In parallel to targeting soldiers and vehicles, the group focused on damaging the intelligence and surveillance equipment installed along the border, enabling its operatives to move more freely and to use missiles and drones. This phase extended from October 2023 until January 2, 2024, when Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ high-ranked commander Saleh el-Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs moved the confrontation up on the escalation ladder.
In retaliation, Hezbollah launched attacks against the Meron air command and control base on January 8, marking the beginning of the second phase, with a net shift in its choice for targets located deeper inside Israeli territory. During this phase, the recurrent attacks on more prominent surveillance installations enabled the group to engage in expanded drone warfare. This also allowed the party to proceed with significant spying operations through drone footage, which in turn enhanced its psychological deterrence against any potential significant Israeli escalation.
The third phase started after July 30, when Israel assassinated the Hezbollah senior military leader Fouad Shokr in the party’s Beiruti stronghold. Undoubtedly, this operation constituted a shift in Hezbollah’s declared and undeclared stance towards the ongoing war. In this respect, Nasrallah asserted that the conflict turned from a support front to a “major battle”. In any case, the party had no other choice but to retaliate adequately and proportionally, despite the potential risks of escalation through the Israeli response.
This was necessary for several reasons. On the one hand, the assassination dealt a severe moral blow to the group’s honor and pride, particularly in relation to its image among its base of supporters. On the other hand, it crossed a tacit red line, as Beirut’s southern suburbs had been considered immune to Israeli airstrikes, an area equated with Tel Aviv in the balance of rules of engagement, as Nasrallah had declared on multiple occasions. Therefore, Hezbollah was compelled to reassert the deterrence equation. After weeks of waiting – during which the entire country and the region anxiously waited for the heightened probability of a full-fledged war – the retaliation came on August 25 with contradicting declarations from both parties. In fact, Israel first declared a massive preemptive strike that successfully aborted the Hezbollah response by destroying thousands of launch-ready missiles and drones. Half an hour later, Hezbollah launched more than 300 missiles on 11 Israeli military sites. Later, Nasrallah declared in his speech that the missile barrage aimed to secure the passage of drones launched on more important targets. He revealed that the chosen target for the retaliation was the 8200 intelligence unit’s headquarters located in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, which was successfully hit, thus reasserting the deterrence equation’s balance. Nevertheless, Israel denied these claims. Since then, both parties have shown a will to slightly de-escalate on the ground. However, this, so far last, series of attacks once again demonstrated the extreme volatility of this front.
Israel’s Struggle for Regaining the Upper Hand
The evolution of the Israeli military engagement in the current conflict can be divided into three distinctive tactical phases.
First, between October 2023 and January 2024, the army engaged in a campaign of containment and dissuasion. This concerned mainly the direct vicinity of its borders with Lebanon. In this regard, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been famous in the past for their deterrence tactics through the use of excessive and disproportionate force during retaliation, willingly pushing its enemies to think twice before defying them. For each missile attack from South Lebanon, the IDF retaliates fourfold. Quantitative data validate the asymmetry of firepower usage, with a ratio of roughly 7,800 strikes from Israel to 1,750 strikes from Lebanon for the entire period of October 2023 to August 2024. To reach this goal, three battalions were dispatched in the North. However, the military command had to adapt to Hezbollah’s redeployment into deeper and more secured positions inside the Lebanese territory by expanding their targets towards such positions.
The second tactical phase started after the assassination of el-Arouri when the IDF became sure of Hezbollah’s unwillingness for escalation that became clear after the group’s relatively restrained responses. It pushed Israel to engage in a war of attrition through which the army started to test Hezbollah’s tolerance by attacking more goals from its bank of targets without major escalation from the group’s side. It is under this frame that we have to understand the assassinations of senior Hezbollah commanders such as Wissam el Tawil on January 8, Taleb Abdallah on June 11, or Mohamad Nasseron July 3. This phase stretched until the end of July, when Israel – taking advantage of the Majdal Shams carnage that led to the death of 12 children – took the risk of a significant escalation by assassinating Fouad Shokr, as discussed earlier. This event marked a new phase in which the Israeli military tried clearly to impose its own novel rules of engagement and its dominance on the escalation ladder by removing the immunity that Beirut and its suburbs have been enjoying until this date. It also came in the context of Netanyahu’s visit to the USA, during which he understood – probably against his expectations – that both the Republicans and the Democrats are in favor of ceasing the hostilities in Gaza. The assassination’s timing – along with Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination – can be then understood as Netanyahu’s will to have quick wins before the US presidential elections, or to simply place the US in a fait accompli and drag it into a regional war against its will. And this brings us to the political aspect of Israel’s engagement in this war.
The Israeli Dilemma
As a matter of fact, and beyond the military goals, the Israeli government found itself in a very delicate position domestically concerning its management of the northern front. In this regard, the pressure of the internally displaced who fled the bordering settlements for a return with a minimal guarantee of safety is growing daily, especially with the start of the new school year in September. On top of that, it is unclear what kind of solution will be politically suitable for Israel and save the face of the government. Indeed, the relative calm enjoyed on its northern front before October 8 was more or less guaranteed by the 1701 UN Security Council’s Resolution of 2006. The resolution stipulated that Hezbollah must redeploy north of the Litani River, giving Israel a safe and demilitarized zone of a few kilometers. The resolution’s application was to be safeguarded by the UNIFIL troops and the Lebanese Armed Forces following the July 2006 war. But since it is obvious now that Hezbollah is openly operating south of the Litani, the resolution seems to be outdated as a frame for a potential settlement. In other words, what will be Israel’s security guarantee after a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, knowing that Hezbollah declared to be unilaterally abiding by it? How will the Israeli society, especially those living on the northern border, feel about their safety, knowing that around 10,000 men of the Radwan force – Hezbollah’s elite division – are deployed there? This poses a serious dilemma for the Israelis. It seems to have been dividing the military apparatus as well, between those who push towards eliminating Hezbollah’s threat through a vast military offensive and those believing that the army is not ready for it. Finally, the inability to secure a decisive win – nor a cease-fire deal – in Gaza may be pushing the government to start thinking about scoring points on the Lebanese front.
Prospects and Scenarios
The processes and dynamics detailed above depict a relatively dark picture of the situation and prospects along Lebanon’s southern borders. In fact, there are four main possible scenarios, with very different likelihoods for each to occur.
The first scenario is the most optimistic one but, unfortunately, the least likely of the four. It would entail an immediate stop to hostilities on the Lebanese front once a cease-fire is reached and implemented between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It would definitely save the face of Hezbollah, which linked its engagement to this variable. In this respect, Nasrallah has recently reiterated that Hamas was negotiating in their name and in the name of the entire Axis of Resistance. However, Israel will probably not accept being dictated by Hezbollah’s agenda and will continue its war of attrition until a deal is sealed under UN Resolution 1701 or a similar arrangement.
The second scenario is the continuation of the ongoing war of attrition as it is happening now, independently of the war in Gaza, with all the risks that it entails in terms of probable escalation. Until now, and following the Fuad Shukr assassination and Hezbollah’s calculated retaliation, this scenario seems to be the most plausible one.
The third scenario would occur as a result of a miscalculated strike, or one of the parties’ misinterpretations of a strike, or a carnage/ mistake – like the Majdal Shams episode – leading to an uncontrolled spiral of escalation. This would mean a war of higher intensity, with the involvement of intensive rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah and massive air warfare reaching all over Lebanese territory for Israel.
The fourth scenario is an all-out regional war. This would involve the direct engagement of Iran and its proxies and push towards US military intervention. For now, while there is a risk, this scenario seems to be the least likely, given the USA’s will to disengage and de-escalate, as well as Iran’s pragmatism, which would not risk such a war, especially being so close to acquiring the nuclear weapon.
Image Credit: Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2023_Hezbollah_drill_in_Aaramta_01.jpg
