Is Israel ready for war with Hezbollah?

When the great Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit had to leave the stage during a performance, he always took a step back to show the audience that he was leaving only reluctantly, before stepping forward again and retreating into the wings to either his left or right. United States policy toward Israel and the war in Gaza followed a similar sequence of forward and backward steps, with the Biden administration not leaving the stage but eternally frustrated by the cuts and thrusts of Middle East policy.

Another week has passed and little has been accomplished toward ending a war that, even Israel admits, could last at least another six months. And now, perhaps more than at any time since Hamas surprised Israel on October 7, fears are growing in Washington that Israel may soon launch an all-out war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The arrival in the region of President Biden’s Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein, a 51-year-old Israeli-American with good contacts in Lebanon, underscored Washington’s concerns about the potential dangers to Israel that could arise from opening a second front in the war.

For months, Hezbollah, a force that is far superior to Hamas in terms of both missile arsenal and manpower, has been carrying out regular attacks across the border, some of them brutal. Israel has retaliated with force. Now Tel Aviv has reportedly approved a military plan that will prepare it for war against Hezbollah. The last war between Israel and Hezbollah took place in 2006. It lasted 34 days and ended in a stalemate.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, and to a lesser extent the Islamic militias in Iraq and Syria, have said their campaign of attacks will continue as long as Israeli forces remain in Gaza. Hockstein has heard that message loud and clear. It is often premature to claim that a war has reached a tipping point, but Biden’s fear of an expanding war in the Middle East now seems more likely rather than less likely.

The threat of further conflict has electrified both Washington and Tel Aviv. That may explain why Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s embattled prime minister, has suddenly decided to protest what he sees as Washington’s deliberate withholding of crucial munitions that his forces need to conduct the current operation in Rafah. No military wants to fight on two fronts.

Netanyahu’s accusation was met with mild criticism in Washington. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state who has seen Netanyahu more often than any other foreign politician in recent months, said the only arms shipment currently temporarily suspended was a stockpile of 2,000-pound bombs. The reason, as has been explained on previous occasions, is that the US fears that the use of these heavy, air-launched bombs would cause unacceptable collateral damage in Rafah’s dense, urban environment.

According to the Pentagon, the shipment includes 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, but also 1,700 500-pound bombs. Netanyahu wants both and feels abandoned by Washington. More importantly, it is refusing to deliver the promised weapons at a time when Israel says it urgently needs them – for use in Lebanon, but perhaps also in Gaza.

The dispute escalated during the week as Washington felt Netanyahu was trying to create the impression that the Pentagon had stopped supplying weapons to Israel. Major General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said:

Since Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, we have promptly provided billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel to help it defend itself. And we will continue to provide Israel with the security assistance it needs.

The point about these particular bombs is that they are not smart precision weapons. They are unguided munitions, and the US does not want to be seen as helping Israel drop bombs on Rafah that ultimately kill civilians and destroy private property. Washington learned this lesson when previous shipments of these heavy bombs did just that in Gaza City in the early stages of the war.

“There is no final decision yet on what to do with this shipment,” Ryder said. While Netanyahu and Washington continued their dispute, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah continued, but without the intensity that had previously caused global horror.

The 162^and The division has been in Rafah for about six weeks and claims to have killed about 550 Hamas soldiers in the city – reportedly about half of the troops fighting there and the equivalent of two battalions of the four-battalion Hamas Rafah Brigade. In the process, the Israeli army has lost 22 soldiers, eight of them in a single Hamas ambush attack on an Israeli armored vehicle.

It is in Israel’s interest to complete the operation in Rafah as soon as possible, and that will probably be possible without the bombs held in the US. But even then the war will not end. Hamas activists have left Rafah to settle elsewhere in Gaza. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said on Wednesday that wiping out the entire Hamas organization and its ideology was unattainable. Making Hamas disappear would be like “pulling sand in the eyes of the public.”

Netanyahu rebuked the admiral. He believes Israel’s survival and his own political future depend on a victory in Gaza. Given the challenges he faces at home, in Gaza and across the northern border in Lebanon, the Israeli leader cannot afford to face discontent in the military.