Are Israel and Hezbollah about to square up?

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. 

Since October, Western officials have been working tirelessly to try and prevent the war in Gaza from spilling over, focused on the possibility of full-scale hostilities breaking out between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-aligned Hezbollah movement.

Despite strenuous efforts and stern warnings, though, the risk of an expanding regional conflict is now rising by the hour, prompting U.S. President Joe Biden’s special envoy Amos Hochstein to underscore the danger of a “greater war” breaking out during his stopovers in Jerusalem and Beirut this week.

A full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah would be devastating for all concerned, and the tremors would roil the entire region and beyond. It would risk damaging the fragile U.S.-led normalization process that’s been painstakingly shaped to improve relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Moreover, a full-scale war would likely see Iran involved in the conflict in a bigger and much more open way than it was during the bloody, inconclusive wars fought between Israel and Hezbollah in 1996 and 2006. That was the message Iran was sending in April when, in an unprecedented move, it stepped out from behind its regional proxies and directly attacked Israel from its own territory — crossing what, for decades, has been seen as a red line.

But with domestic pressure mounting to tackle Hezbollah, will Israeli leaders continue to listen to Washington’s calls for restraint?

Since the country launched its retaliatory military campaign in Gaza eight months ago, after the Oct. 7 attacks, Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been trading cross-border fire. However, they’ve kept their daily tit-for-tat exchanges below the threshold of full-blown war, or within what Lebanese politicians call the “rules of the game” — informal guidelines established after 2006 to reduce the risk of miscalculation and escalation by both sides.

But, as Hochstein noted, the past 19 days have seen step changes, with a significant intensification by Hezbollah and the rules of the game stretched. The need for de-escalation is “urgent,” he said, stressing that the exchanges across the Blue Line — the line of demarcation between Israel and Lebanon — had “gone on for long enough.”

Hochstein’s remarks were in light of the fact that last week, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israeli military sites after one of its own senior commanders, Taleb Abdullah, was targeted and killed by the IDF. The group has been using explosive-laden drones alongside rocket and anti-tank missile barrages. And in May, it launched a missile-carrying drone against Israel for the first time. In all, Hezbollah says it has launched more than 2,000 strikes on Israel since October and, encouraged by Iran, that it will end hostilities only when an agreement has been reached in Gaza — a possibility that seems further away each passing day.

Adding to the rising alarm, Hezbollah threateningly posted nearly 10 minutes of footage of the port at Haifa and other sensitive military locations in northern Israel this week, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling air defense systems. The group said the footage was shot by a reconnaissance drone that was unimpeded and was able to return to Lebanon.

For its part, Israel has been warning for months now that it intends to push Iran-backed Hezbollah further from the Lebanese border and to the other side of the Litani River— either through diplomacy or war.

And in recent days, the rhetoric of Israeli officials has noticeably hardened: Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned Hezbollah that in the event of “total war,” it would be destroyed and that Israel’s “very close to the moment when we will decide to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon.” On Tuesday, government spokesman David Mencer insisted Israel will “ensure the safe and secure return of Israelis to their homes in northern Israel.” Most are currently being housed at government expense in hotels in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said that IDF commanders have approved their operational battle plans to mount an assault across Israel’s northern border, including decisions to “[accelerate] the readiness of the forces on the ground.” All that’s needed now is a green light from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli military said that IDF commanders have approved their operational battle plans to mount an assault across Israel’s northern border. | Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images

This escalation in Israeli rhetoric was matched on Wednesday, when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened that nowhere in Israel would be safe if full-fledged war broke out. And for good measure, he stressed that the war theater would then expand well beyond the Levant to include Cyprus, if Israel was allowed use of the island’s airport and facilities for logistics. The “situation in the Mediterranean will change completely,” Nasrallah warned grimly. Hezbollah will fight with “no rules” and “no ceilings.” 

The fact is, neither side will fight with kid gloves — both have the capacity to inflict terrible damage on the other. Israel has the ability to flatten Lebanon and has warned it will do so in the event of war — what’s happened to Gaza only reinforces that threat. And Hezbollah isn’t the Hezbollah of 2006. It’s much better armed, with an estimated rocket inventory of 40,000 to 120,000 — more than most countries — and has made clear it will take the fight right into the heart of Israel. Even back in 2016, the group’s commanders had told me that Hezbollah operations in Syria amounted to a useful “dress rehearsal for our next war with Israel.”

But while these threats and counter-threats are meant, in part, to deter each other from overreach, they also risk making it harder for either side to back down. Israelis aren’t in the mood for compromise and IDF commanders — while increasingly critical of Netanyahu over a seemingly forever war in Gaza, which they accuse him of prolonging for narrow political reasons — are eager to get to grips with Hezbollah. 

In December, Netanyahu withstood pressure from IDF commanders and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to order an attack on Hezbollah. But he’s now coming under fire from evacuated families and northern politicians, demanding to know why they’re being treated differently from the communities in southern Israel. They say that if part of the logic of the war on Hamas has been to ensure the permanent safety of the kibbutzim in southern Israel, the 80,000 northern evacuees from near the Lebanese border should be accorded the same protection.

And most Israeli Jews agree with them that a major assault will eventually have to be mounted. According to a poll from the Jewish People Policy Institute, 36 percent of respondents supported an immediate attack, and a further 26 percent said one should be launched after the operation in Gaza is concluded.

Ultranationalists and far-right parties in Netanyahu’s rambunctious governing coalition are also demanding a big military response. For example, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are both urging the Israeli leader to not be dissuaded by the U.S. from going for Hezbollah’s jugular. 

Their argument is that an attack on Lebanon would be another war launched to defend and protect Israel from its foes. But many of these ultranationalists and those on the messianic right-wing of Israeli politics, including Ben-Gvir’s wife Ayala, also see a war with Hezbollah as an opportunity to seize southern Lebanon, which they view as part of “God’s Promised Land” and territory that should be settled by Israelis.