by James M Dorsey
Sunday’s escalation of hostilities along the Israeli-Lebanese border raises more questions than it provides answers.
Israeli said it launched airstrikes against 40 targets in southern Lebanon to preempt retaliation by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia, for the July 30 killing in Beirut of the group’s military commander, Fuad Shukr.
Hezbollah confirmed the Israeli assertion, saying it fired some 320 Katyusha rockets and a “large number” of drones at military targets in Israel in an initial response to Mr. Shukr’s killing, raising the spectre of further retaliatory operations.
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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyah, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and military leaders discuss escalation of hostilities with Hezbollah. Credit: Israel Defense Ministry
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a similar warning, despite insisting that Israel does not want an escalated war. Speaking after a Cabinet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said the preemptive strikes were “not the final word.”
He said the strikes were “another step towards changing the situation in the north and safely returning our residents to their homes.”
Israel, like Lebanon, has evacuated tens of thousands of residents along the Lebanese Israel border. Israeli officials had hoped to return the Israelis to their homes by September 1.
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What is clear is that both Israel and Hezbollah calibrated their most recent exchanges to avoid tensions evolving into an all-out Middle East war.
Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran insist they do not want a full-fledged, regionwide war. Their various allies, the United States, Russia, France, and Syria, have worked to restrain them despite repeated Israeli targeting of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iranian operatives in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
Hezbollah initiated hostilities along the Israeli-Lebanese border a day after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 of last year. The attack sparked the Gaza war. Hezbollah has consistently said the hostilities were in support of Hamas and would end when a Gaza ceasefire was achieved.
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Nevertheless, stepped-up Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in recent days that pushed the envelope but did not exceed informal rules of engagement that restrict hostilities to the Israel-Lebanese border area and military targets put the Lebanese group in a position in which it needed to be seen to be responding and reestablishing its deterrence capabilities.
Even so, the timing of Hezbollah’s latest attack and Israel’s preemptive strikes leave multiple questions open, including whether the escalation was related to the Gaza ceasefire talks and what Hezbollah’s moves reveal about its relations with Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah may have wanted to raise the stakes in this weekend’s ceasefire talks in Cairo, described by US officials as a last chance to achieve, at least, a temporary silencing of the guns, an exchange of Hamas-held hostages for Palestinians incarcerated in Israel, and a free flow of humanitarian aid into the ravaged Strip, and avert an all-out regional war.
In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said as much. Interestingly, Mr. Nasrallah further said Hezbollah had waited with its retaliation to see whether Iran and other Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen would coordinate attacks on Israel. So far it would seem that each member of the Axis of Resistance is acting independently.
Meanwhile, Israeli and pro-Israeli hardliners suggest that a Gaza ceasefire would hand Hezbollah a victory and further undermine unsuccessful Israeli efforts to deter the group.
Hezbollah also felt that the impact of keeping Israelis unsure about when and how it and Iran would retaliate was fading as Israelis adapted to the uncertainty.
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“If a ceasefire…is achieved…Hezbollah will be able to justify the suffering of the intervening months by claiming that they led to a victory…– one that, as Nasrallah is already claiming, brought the collective umma (or global Muslim community of the faithful) a large step closer to Palestine’s total liberation ‘from the river to the sea,’” said David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Washington-based hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Hezbollah’s regional standing was buoyed when Wafiq Safa, a senor Hezbollah official, paid a rare visit to the United Arab Emirates in March to arrange for the release of Lebanese nationals imprisoned for supporting the group.
The UAE, like the United States and other Western nations, has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The US has also personally sanctioned Mr. Safa.
The Arab League that groups 22 Arab countries declared a day before M. Shukr’s killing that it would no longer label Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
No doubt, Hezbollah would claim victory. However, that could prove premature. A halt of hostilities along the Israeli-Lebanese border opens the door to pressure on the group to comply with United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.
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Credit: AA
Adopted in 2006 to end the last Israel-Hezbollah war, the resolution calls for the deployment of Lebanese government forces in southern Lebanon and the establishment of a demilitarised zone between the Blue Line and Lebanon’s Litani River, 29 kilometres north of the border with Israel.
The Blue Line demarks the boundaries between Lebanon, Israel, and the occupied Golan Heights, conquered by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war. By implication, resolution 1701 obliges Hezbollah to withdraw to the northern bank of the Litani River.
Even if the timing of Hezbollah’s retaliation for Mr. Shukr’s killing was designed to pressure the mediators in the Gaza ceasefire talks, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, and Israel, it also suggests that the group is willing and able to ignore advice from Iran and Syria, its major allies.
Even worse, Hezbollah’s retaliation puts Iran on the spot.
Iran has refrained from retaliation for the killing in Tehran of Hamas political leader and ceasefire negotiator Ismail Haniyeh a day after Mr. Shukr’s assassination. Iran has indicated that a ceasefire could persuade it not to take revenge.
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IRGC commander Hossein Salami. Credit: Al Mayadeen
However, Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), told a rally in western Iran hours after the latest outburst of Hezbollah Israel hostility to expect “good news about Iran’s revenge.” Israeli analysts predicted that Iran would act in the coming days.
Raising the stakes, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem last week swept aside Iranian pressure on the group to give the Gaza ceasefire talks a chance by delaying its retaliation for Mr. Shukr’s killing.
Mr. Qassem insisted that Hezbollah would retaliate irrespective of whether a Gaza ceasefire is achieved.
To reinforce the point, Hezbollah released a video of a fortified underground facility, claiming it had “precision and non-precision missiles” capable of striking deep inside Israel.
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Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem
Mr. Qassem’s remarks and the video came amid signs of strains in the group’s relationship with neighbouring Syria, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, over President Bashar al-Assad’s insistence that Syria will remain on the sidelines of an all-out regional conflagration.
The signs were evident earlier this month when Mr. Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, refused to emerge from hiding to meet with Mr. Assad’s visiting intelligence chief, General Hussam Louka. Mr. Louka had to make do with Mr. Qassem and Mr. Safa, the senior Hezbollah official.
Mr. Assad’s decision to remain on the sidelines of a Middle East conflagration was likely bolstered by US efforts to strengthen the Syrian Defense Forces’ air defense capability by arming the rebels with its Avenger Defense System.
The US move followed an increase in attacks by Iran-backed groups on US military facilities in Syria and stepped-up Turkish operations against the rebels.
Without an end to the Gaza war, “the violent conflict in the north will continue, and eventually, this will develop into a large-scale war: Hezbollah firing long-range missiles, Israel responding on a scale we haven’t yet seen,,” said former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
“This development is the only one that serves Netanyahu’s priorities, and apparently also (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar’s needs… Both Sinwar and Netanyahu hope that in the end, Iran will enter into a direct confrontation with Israel,” Mr. Olmert added.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.