As the war intensifies in the Gaza Strip, another round of fighting simultaneously rages along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. This is a dangerous tit-for-tat game that has become more intense in recent weeks against a much more powerful enemy.
To prevent the risk of an all-out war, President Biden dispatched his senior adviser Amos Hostein to Israel on the 16th and Lebanon on the 20th to urge a diplomatic solution.
Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian militia fighting Israel in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has a battle-hardened military, and it has long-range, precision-guided missiles that can strike targets deep inside Israel.
Despite clear efforts by both sides to prevent the cycle of strikes and counterattacks from spreading beyond the fighting in Gaza into full-scale war, civilians in Israel and Lebanon have been killed and more than 150,000 people have been driven from their homes. Border.
However, as the fighting has intensified recently, concerns are growing that misjudgment could lead to a deeper conflict between the two sides. Hezbollah has said it will not negotiate a ceasefire until Israel ends its military operation in Gaza, which could last for weeks or months.
Stronger and better equipped militias
Israeli military officials have long expected that well-trained gunmen would one day cross the border and head to villages and military bases, as Hamas did on October 7. But they tended to look north. A relatively weak Palestinian armed group.
After the Hamas-led attack, the Israeli military began rushing troops using convoys and helicopters to cover its northern border, fearing that Hezbollah would seize the opportunity to invade. The next day, Hezbollah launched an attack on northern Israel in a show of solidarity, which prompted Israel to counterattack in Lebanon.
Analysts say Hezbollah is much stronger now than it was in 2006, the last time it fought a major war with Israel. The war, which lasted about five weeks, killed more than 1,000 Lebanese and 160 Israelis and displaced more than a million people. But today, a war between the two sides could devastate both Israel and Lebanon, they said.
During the 2006 war, Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets over five weeks, mainly toward northern Israel, said Asaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general. He added that the group would now be able to launch that many missiles, including heavy missiles, that could cause significant damage across Israel in just one day.
brig. General Shlomo Brom, Israel’s former top military strategist, said the sheer volume of ammunition in Hezbollah’s arsenal, especially its drone cache, could overwhelm Israel’s formidable air defenses in the event of an all-out war. Hezbollah’s forces are also experienced fighters. Many of them fought in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime, also backed by Iran.
“An unrestricted war would result in greater destruction both on the civilian home front and deeper inside Israel,” General Brohm said. “They have the ability to target anywhere in Israel, and they will target civilian targets just as we target south Beirut,” he added, referring to the capital area, a known Hezbollah stronghold.
There are equally great concerns about Hezbollah. Lebanon’s economy was in a slump before the current crisis, and many Lebanese have little desire for a repeat of the 2006 war. Moreover, analysts say Iran, Hezbollah’s backer, has no interest in escalating and may prefer to deploy its proxies at a more opportune moment.
Hezbollah stepped up its attacks against Israel in retaliation after senior Hezbollah commander Taleb Abdallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week. Over the next few days, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones toward Israel, wounding several soldiers and civilians.
“Both sides are constantly challenging the other’s red lines. “At the moment, neither side seems to want an all-out war,” General Orion said.
“But in principle, they can easily fall for it, even if it’s not what they want,” he added.
Despite these risks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure at home to step up military operations against Hezbollah. After the October 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant supported preemptive war in Lebanon but was overruled. On Tuesday, the Israeli military announced that its top commanders had approved an operational plan for a potential attack on Lebanon but did not specify when or if the plan would be used.
Tens of thousands of Israelis from the northern border areas are scattered across the country with no time in sight to return home. And far-right members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition have called for stronger measures, including the establishment of an Israeli-run “security zone” within Lebanese territory.
Shlomi Madar, 58, was greeted by a deserted city when she visited her hometown of Kiryat Shmona on the border on Tuesday. He had been living in a hotel in Tel Aviv for the past eight months and was hoping to return home, but he wasn’t sure he would feel safe enough to do so.
“You can feel the tension in the air. “It’s crazy,” said bus driver Mr. Madar said. “We won’t be going back anytime soon. Who would want to come back? Who would believe that?”
More than 80 Lebanese civilians and 11 Israeli civilians have been killed since October, according to United Nations and Israeli government statistics. About 300 Hezbollah fighters were killed, according to the Israeli government, and at least 17 Israeli soldiers were also killed, according to the group.
American diplomatic pressure
Mr. Hostein, a senior adviser to President Biden, met with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut on Tuesday, a day after meeting Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and called for a diplomatic solution.
Israel has demanded that its troops withdraw from Lebanon north of the Litani River in line with the Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war, but Hezbollah is unlikely to comply. The resolution states that only UN forces and Lebanese troops can enter the area, but both sides have accused each other of violating this.
While in Beirut, Mr. Hochstein did not meet with leaders of Hezbollah, which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization. Instead, he met with members of the Lebanese government, including Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose influence over Hezbollah is limited.
“The situation is serious,” Mr. Hochstein told reporters in Beirut. “We have seen the situation escalate over the past few weeks, and what President Biden wants to do is avoid escalation into a larger war.”
Hochstein’s visit offered only a sliver of hope that the war would soon end for Lebanese civilians whose homes lie along the border, many of whom have become refugees.
“Every time we heard about this visit, we packed our bags to go home,” said Taghrid Hassan, a teacher from the inland Lebanese border town of Aitaroun who now lives in the coastal city of Tyre. He said. “Then our hope will be lost in these empty promises.”
