Israel-Hezbollah War Is Inevitable?

“IDF approves Lebanon operation plans” - Israel Defence Forces

“No place in Israel would be safe in war. There will be no rules and no red lines” - Hezbollahu leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

“Sixty-two percent of Jewish Israelis support an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon with “full force” - Jewish People Policy Insititute survey.

“Hezbollah might fire 2,500 to 3,000 missiles a day, 25 times the rate of 2006, for three weeks running.” - Reichman University report.

This is just a small snapshot of the level of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which has escalated almost daily since 7 October.

Israel has had to evacuate its citizens from the north of the country, which is regularly shelled by Hezbollah. The pro-Iranian militant group has made the ceasefire conditional on a truce in Gaza. Netanyahu's cabinet does not believe in the intentions of Nasrallah's group and is preparing to invade the north to neutralise the militia. The problem is that Hezbollah is considered the most powerful non-state actor in the world, with an arsenal of missiles estimated at between 120,000 and 500,000 - mainly sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

On July 28, several of these rockets fell on the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 young Israelis further exacerbating already tense relations

Observing the actions of both sides, one gets the impression that we are on an inevitable path to war. Is it indeed unavoidable?

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An (unstoppable) domino effect?

The whole sequence of escalations on the Hezbollah-Israel line best illustrates the hopelessness of the situation. Each side feels that it cannot take a step backwards, and it must take up every gauntlet thrown down by its rival and raise the stakes.

We could go back endlessly in the chain of cause and effect, to the historical origins of Israeli-Arab hostility, so let us focus only on recent events - starting with 7 October and the attack on Israel by Hamas militias.

On 8 October, the day after the Hamas attack, Hezbollah opened a second front, in the north. It helped Hamas by diverting the attention of the Israeli Defence Forces, while motivating its attacks with a disproportionate Israeli response. This motive becomes particularly important after Israel has driven out Hamas fighters, and entered a phase of methodical destruction of Hamas, which includes the de facto destruction of the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has expressed support for Hamas's actions and described Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a "great, courageous leader".

Exchanges between the parties were initially limited, but over time they have expanded horizontally, along the entire length of the so-called ‘blue line’ demarcating the Israeli-Lebanese border. However, the range has generally been limited to a few kilometres, although this is beginning to change. Hezbollah mailny attacked neighbouring villages and moshavas (Jewish agricultural cooperatives). The IDF responded with strikes to neutralise the sources of the attacks - launchers, which Hezbollah often deployed in towns such as Marwahin or Ayta Ash Shab.

When the Israelis attacked an aluminium factory in Nabatieh on 17 November, Hezbollah responded with an attack on the IDF headquarters on 20 November.

Although the range remained generally limited, over time Israel's long arm began to reach deeper, seeking to neutralise high-value targets - including alleged ammunition factories or Hezbollah fighting centres deep inside the territory, as well as direct attacks on senior officials. One such precision strike on 2 January killed Saleh al-Arouri, one of the leaders of Hamas and founder of its military wing, the al-Qassem Brigades.

Not only was one of the leaders of the allied organisation killed, but the attack took place in a southern suburb of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, namely Dahiyeh, which is considered a Hezbollah enclave. Hezbollah responded by attacking the Meron airbase with a salvo of 62 missiles.

In the weeks that followed, the exchanges continued. The IDF killed, among others, Wissam Tawil, deputy commander of Hezbollah's elite Radwan force, Ali Hussein Barji, head of the drone unit, and Ali al-Debs, another Radwan representative.

Hezbollah responded with attacks on command centres in Safed or on IDF bases in the Golan Heights. Israel eliminated warehouses and weapons factories north of the Litani River, hitting places such as Ghaziyeh, Baalbek and Birket Jabbour airport. Hezbollah responded by firing hundreds more rockets into Israeli territory. In total, it has fired some 5,000 rockets over the past eight months - including short-range rockets, rocket artillery, anti-tank missiles, drones and more.

At the same time, both sides are engaged in an increasingly sophisticated psychological game of how much damage one side can inflict on the other.

In June, Yossi Cohen, former head of Mossad, Israel's secret service, said: 'We know the exact location of the secretary-general of the terrorist organisation [Hassan Nasrallah], and we can take him out at any moment.”

The next day, 18 June, Hezbollah released a video of one of its drones indiscriminately flying over one of Israel's strategic targets - the port of Haifa.

Shortly afterwards, the IDF announced that its high command had approved plans for an offensive in Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah responded that if Israel attacked, Hezbollah would respond with full force and that the fighting would be without any rules. He even threatened the Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, if its airports were used to attack Lebanese territory.

Moments later, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel was ready to send troops north once the current phase of the Gaza war was over. We can fight on several fronts and we are prepared to do so,' he said.

The latest episode of escalation was written by Saturday's attack on the town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Twelve people were killed, including 10 children, driving public anger in Israel to record highs. Although, it should be noted, Hezbollah has strongly refused the perticipation in the attack.

And so the situation draggs on for more than eight months, with almost every day bringing an escalation or at least maintaining the current level of exchanges. The direct losses are much higher on the Hezbollah side - in total, more than 400 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, including high-ranking officials - as of 7 July, 35 have been killed; strategically important targets have also been destroyed. However, while Israel's losses have been disproportionately lower, with 30 dead and limited material damage, Tel Aviv is clearly suffering from the constant exchange of fire with pro-Iranian militias.

It is all about civilians, and in particular their evacuation. According to various estimates, up to 200,000 people have been displaced as a result of the hostilities. More on the Lebanese side - more than 100,000, but the numbers for Israel are also significant - estimated at around 70,000 people.

Every one of these people has had to leave their homes, which is indirect evidence of the failure of the State of Israel to protect its citizens from such a scenario and to ensure their safety. For this reason, the temperature is rising in Israel, and with it the pressure on the government to finally take action against Hezbollah.

One of the largest evacuated towns in the north is Kiryat Shmona, with a population of 22,000. This town - once a Likud stronghold - is now empty. It was there that Benjamin Netanyahu, sensing the local mood, declared in June that "we are ready for a very intensive action in the north that will restore security in one way or another”.

The "hawks" wing in Israel is strong, and not only in the military community. The view that the IDF should deal with Hezbollah in the traditional way, and that this option is not only necessary but inevitable, is held by the majority of the public. According to a survey by the Jewish People Policy Insititute, as many as 62% of Israeli Jews, who make up about 75% of the population, support attacking Hezbollah with full force. 57% believe the offensive should begin immediately.

Therefore, Netanyahu's offensive stance should not come as a surprise - the Israeli prime minister is anxious to stay in power, for which it is necessary to project himself as a strong leader who will not bow to any pressure, even from the world's greatest superpower. Benny Gantz, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, does not mince his words either: "We can plunge Lebanon completely into the dark and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days" he said. Dr. Omer Dostri, an expert at Israel's Defense and Security Forum, on the other hand, says: "Israel will have to militarily defeat Hezbollah. There won't be another chance for that. The Israeli government is required to prepare the Israeli public for a broad war in Lebanon that will destroy the Hezbollah organization, including the occupation of all of southern Lebanon, and the destruction of Beirut and other major cities in Lebanon.”

There are many such voices in Israel, that’s why there is growing concern that war is just around the corner.

The massive elephant in the room

The elephant in the room, however, is so massive that cannot be overlooked. And that is the potential of Hezbollah. The human capacity of the Lebanese militia is more than three times that of Hamas. Hamas was said to have about 30,000 fighters. Hezbollah has more than 100,000. Geographically, Hamas was quickly cut off from the world; Hezbollah has a kind of strategic depth of its own to which it can flee if necessary - it is not in danger of being encircled. But perhaps Hezbollah's most frequently cited resource is its missile potential. These estimates vary widely, depending on which side is making them.

A representative of Iran's Quds Force told Foreign Policy that Hezbollah is said to have close to a million (!) missiles of various types, including precision weapons, rocket artillery, and anti-tank weapons. This is an upper-bound estimate, almost certainly unrealistic. Ahmad Qabalan, Lebanon's Shiite mufti, estimates Hezbollah's potential at half a million missiles of various types.

Western analysts put the upper limit at half that number, and more realistically at 120,000-200,000 missiles, according to CSIS. Still, this is up to four to eight times more than the rocket potential Hamas had at its disposal. Nasrallah said that so far Hezbollah has used only a small portion of its own arsenal. Of course, the vast majority of it is supplied by Hezbollah's patron, Iran, although the militant group most likely has its own manufacturing capabilities, albeit on a limited scale. "We have been producing drones in Lebanon for a long time," Nasrallah said in 2022, which he repeated in June.

Most of Hezbollah's rockets are short-range, non-precision weapons, which Hezbollah currently uses in a fiery exchange with Israel, but not exclusively. Hezbollah also has Iranian-made precision ballistic missiles, the Fateh-110, with a 500-kg payload. The militia can have up to 400 of these missiles. The effect of an attack on a city can be similar to the destruction wrought by a Russian Iskander strike. With a range of 300 kilometers, all of Israel's major urban centers - including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - are within range of the missile.

Hezbollah is also believed to have SCUD missiles, which are less accurate but have an even larger explosive charge (nearly a ton) and a range of up to 500 kilometers, depending on the variant, which would cover all of Israel.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that in the event of an Israeli attack, Hezbollah would seek to overwhelm Israel's air defense systems, such as Iron Dome, with saturation attacks. Non-precision missiles such as Fajr, Raad, Kahibar, or Zelzal rockets, which Hezbollah has in abundance, would be fired in large numbers at Israeli cities, with a few dozens of Fateh-110 missiles flying in the midst of them, aimed at strategic targets. Israel has an excellent air defense system - the Iron Dome, David's Sling and the Arrow constitute three different layers of protection, but in the event of a massive salvo from the north, even such an advanced, multi-layered system will let enemy rockets through. This is evidenced, for example, by humiliating attack of July 19th, when a Houthi-launched drone traveled more than 1,800 kilometers and struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen. How the drone penetrated Israeli systems is unknown.

Note also that an advanced defensive missile is usually much more expensive than a "dumb" offensive missile. Hezbollah, and through it Iran, can quickly exhaust Israel's defense forces.

An unpublished report by Reichman University in Herzliya, cited by The Economist and authored by more than 100 Israeli experts, indicates that Hezbollah can afford to fire between 2,500 and 3,000 rockets per day, which would be a 25(!) times increase over the intensity of the 2006 war shelling. This would be the largest rocket salvo in world history. Casualties could run into the tens of thousands, the report said.

The IDF is counting on the U.S. Navy patrolling the area to help in the fight, but in the event of a conflict, ships will also have to be on guard, as Hezbollah has a C-802 anti-ship missile, which it used to attack the Israeli ship INS Hanit in 2006. It also has a considerable arsenal of drones, including the HUDHUD and ABABIL, which can carry up to 50 kg of cargo. And while the Americans can help with medium- and long-range rocket attacks, short-range missiles simply fly too short for the U.S. Navy to shoot down. And these are the missiles that Hezbollah has the most of.

Unprecedentedly for a non-state group, Hezbollah also has anti-aircraft capabilities, specifically the Iranian Sayyad system, or the Soviet-Russian Osa, Buk, or Pantsir - known from the war in Ukraine. Although this is mostly old equipment, it can still pose a threat to Israeli fighters, meaning that in the event of war, the IDF will not have the unquestioned air superiority it enjoyed in Gaza, at least initially.

None of this, of course, means that the military capabilities of the two sides are equal, to say the least. The IDF's advantage remains devastating, and Israel would inevitably win such a clash.

And in the end, it is Iran that wins.

However, a more cautious commentators point out that, it is not about Israel winning at any cost. Opponents of opening another, much larger front in the north believe that the situation would go from bad to much worse. The war would primarily benefit Israel's strategic rival, which is not Hezbollah, but the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the event of an outbreak of tension, Israel could expect the activation of the entire network of Iranian militias that make up the strength of the so-called Axis of Resistance. According to some Israeli analysts, Iran's goal is to create a so-called "ring of fire" around Israel, opening several fronts at once in order to destroy the IDF's conventional superiority. Iran would do this even without its own disciples in the attack, only orchestrating its militias, arming and training them in the rear. The problem with this approach is that these groups are fundamentally uncontrollable. According to author Yochanan Visser, Hamas allegedly decided on the October 7 attack without consulting Iran, making it easier for Israel to neutralize the threat.

Had the Hamas attack been coordinated with a larger attack by Hezbollah and other groups in the region - and perhaps Iran itself - the results would have been devastating. Nevertheless, another attack that neutralizes Hezbollah would most likely open several new fronts, large and small, that would be very difficult to suppress given the nature of the enemy. The diractions would include Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Judea and Samaria - that is, the West Bank.

Especially since, after eight months of fighting, Israeli soldiers are simply tired and short on recruits. The Economist writes: "At present, the idf is stretched thin in Gaza and the West Bank. I don’t see where they’re going to bring enough soldiers from,” says one reservist who took part in those drills.

This sums up the tragedy of the whole situation. Hezbollah is making the cessation of attacks dependent on peace in Gaza. Israel, even if peace comes, does not trust Hezbollah to keep its word to withdraw. Moreover, even if it did cease attacks, the group's potential to attack Israel would continue to hang over Israel's head and would inevitably grow.

As a result, some experts believe that Israel is addressing its signalling in the wrong direction. This view is held by Professor Gerlad Steinberg, among others, who argues that Israel should shift its strategic communication from Lebanon to Iran and use blackmail to convince the ayatollahs that their survival depends on ending Hezbollah attacks.

That about, for example, a veiled threat to destroy Iran's entire fuel complex, which is the country's main source of income, if the Iranian-led Hezbollah does not cease its campaign of attacks against Israel. Steinberg is essentially discussing the option of "cutting out the middleman" and taking the problem directly to the patron. The problem with this approach is obvious - further escalation. From a potentially limited conflict involving Lebanon and Israel, we get a full-scale war involving a large region of the Middle East and even global players like the US, Russia, and China. An effective threat would have to bring things to a knife edge, in which case the dominoes could fall quickly.

Even Hezbollah itself, whose leader claims that war is avoidable and that his group will stop attacks as long as there is peace in Gaza, has many motivations to push the conflict. Its main patron and financier is the Islamic Republic of Iran - if Hezbollah does not go with the flow coming from Tehran, there could quickly be a controlled change at the top within the group's structures and the casting of a person more amenable to the ayatollahs' proposals. Moreover, within the ideological and religious framework, Hezbollah must show actions that oppose Israel, which violates Islam and its followers - especially those in Gaza and the West Bank. Thus, attacks on Israel also legitimizes its own position in the Arab world.

Voices of discontent are also coming from across the Atlantic. Another, this time much bigger, war in the Middle East is the last thing the Joe Biden administration - and the United States of America in general - needs at the moment, with its focus on the war in Ukraine and the even bigger Chinese challenge. Meanwhile, the friction between Israel and Hezbollah shows the fragility of the hegemon's policies. That's the point of Daniel DePetris's critique. The Defense Priorities Fellow notes in msnbc piece that the US has somehow become hostage to Israel, dependent on the Jewish state's moves. Why?

In theory, the Biden administration is calling for common sense and restraint in escalation, while at the same time assuring Israel of almost unconditional support in the event of war. This approach further solidifies the pro-war position of Netajahu's cabinet by presenting Israel as an uncontrollable actor that can nevertheless count on Washington's support.

All this shows how difficult the situation is. No matter what strings we pull, the risk of an outbreak is great.

Or is there a way through the middle?

Still, there seems to be a way that has the potential to save both nations from war. To this end, the Americans have sent their representative, diplomat Amos Hochstein, to find a peace solution. He has met with representatives of Hezbollah and Israel to assess the situation before mediating. An agreement would most likely include some form of cease-fire in Gaza, as well as the withdrawal of Hezbollah militias a few to several kilometers into Lebanon, allowing civilians on both sides to return to their homes. Israel wants Hezbollah to withdraw behind the Litani River - but it is doubtful that Nasrallah would make such concessions.

Overall, however, such a solution requires cold calculation, rationality, trust, and keeping one's word on both sides. Is this even possible at a time when so much bad blood has already been shed?

Some symptoms that it is indeed possible are being sent, among others, by the head of the Israeli Defense Forces. In Time we read: "Herzi Halevi recognizes achieving a new status quo in the north will require an indirect understanding with Hezbollah. The outlines of such an arrangement have been put forward by American and French mediators. They include a withdrawal of critical Hezbollah’s capabilities up to six miles from the border, an enhanced presence by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a peacekeeping force that straddles the border, coupled with guarantees and strategic monitoring by the U.S. and France."

Also in an interview with the BBC, a senior Hezbollah official says: “A war is possible but not inevitable”

Dr. Lina Khatib of Chantham House also tries to find positives in a sea of negatives, suggesting that the current verbal and psychological escalation may be a kind of substitute for kinetic escalation. Neither side is interested in a devastating war, but both need to portray themselves as tough and capable of fighting. Hezbollah wants to singal this to Iran and the Arab world, Netanyahu and his cabinet to the Israeli public. Both sides, notes Professor Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University, have somehow learned to tolerate the current status quo. While fundamentally negative, it is better than war, which in the worst-case scenario could engulf the entire region - including the United States and Iran.

Israel has invaded or bombed Lebanon at least five times: 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006, and although Israel has theoretically emerged victorious each time, the triumphs always were temporary. The 1982 invasion was particularly bloody, leading to a nearly 20-year occupation and contributing to the rise of Hezbollah. The most recent war, in 2006, was a tactical success for Israel, but a strategic failure. The Hezbollah of 2024 is bigger, better armed, more experienced, and politically stronger than the Hezbollah of 2006. Will the war of 2024 or 2025 be another Pyrrhic victory for Netanyahu?

What does the future hold? First of all, uncertainty. "I truly don't know where this is heading, and your bet is as good as mine,” says Sarit Zehavi, director of the Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank located a few kilometers from the Lebanese border that studies the conflict with Hezbollah.

But one thing is certain: another war in the region means tens of thousands more civilian casualties. On both sides. And the risk of the war spilling over into the already, extermly volatile region is alarmingly high.

 

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