What a war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah could look like

While Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has attracted most of the world’s attention over the past eight months, fighting is now escalating on a second front – on the country’s northern border with Lebanon.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched its most significant rocket attack yet on Israel last week in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah commander, raising concerns that the conflict could escalate rapidly.

Fighting on the northern border has been simmering for months as Iran-backed Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles and drones at Israel, while the Israeli Air Force has Thousands Air strikes. Around 140,000 people were displaced from their homes on both sides of the border.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that while he believes neither Israel nor Hezbollah are seeking a major war, there is nevertheless “potential momentum in that direction.” His Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, said on Tuesday that his country was close to making a decision on whether to go to war and warned: “In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard.”

But Israel would also be bloodied. Hezbollah is a far more dangerous opponent than Hamas, as it is considered the most heavily armed non-state actor in the world, according to the Center for International and Strategic Studies. The group has built up a highly sophisticated weapons arsenal with the support of Iran, Syria and Russia.

“Hamas is a tactical threat to the State of Israel. Hezbollah is a strategic threat to the State of Israel,” said Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States during the Obama administration.

The group has an estimated 130,000 Missiles and missiles that could quickly overwhelm the country’s sophisticated air defense systems and hit its largest cities.

“I’ve read estimates of what Hezbollah could do to us in three days that are just horrific,” Oren said. “They’re talking about shutting down all our critical infrastructure, oil refineries, air bases, Dimona,” he said, referring to the site of the country’s nuclear research facility.

On Tuesday published Drone footage of the Israeli port of Haifa, 27 kilometers from the Lebanese border, apparently in an attempt to demonstrate the missile’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses and penetrate deep into the country.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in 2006 that ended in a tense stalemate. In the years since, the Lebanese group has bolstered its arsenal and gained significant combat experience in Syria, where it fought alongside Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to support embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad during his country’s civil war. A Hezbollah commander said Voice of America in 2016 that the conflict was a “dress rehearsal” for the next war with Israel.

Like Hamas, Hezbollah is said to have developed a network of tunnels that runs beneath Lebanon. Some Israeli analysts believe that it is even more extensive than that used by Hamas. And unlike Gaza, which is geographically isolated from its backers in Tehran, Iran has established ground and air supply routes that lead to Lebanon via Iraq and Syria and could be used to support Hezbollah forces in the event of a full-scale war.

An escalation would also be devastating for Lebanon, where Hezbollah described as if one were talking about a “state within a state”, since Israel is likely to target the capital Beirut and other cities.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that in the event of war, Israel would send Lebanon “back to the Stone Age.”

Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has deep roots in the Lebanese civilian population. During the 2006 war, Israel was criticized by human rights groups for excessive use of force. non-military targets Hezbollah-affiliated institutions – including banks, schools and political offices – and attacks on the civil infrastructure.

“The plan would be to destroy any semblance of Hezbollah rule in the country it dominates. We’re talking a lot of damage here,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

The years of relative calm following the 2006 war ended abruptly when Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets and missiles at Israel following the October 7, 2023 attacks – apparently in solidarity with Hamas. The path to de-escalating the crisis on Israel’s northern border is likely to lead through Gaza, said Daniel Byman, a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

“I think if Hamas agrees to a ceasefire, Hezbollah will respect that too,” Byman said. “It has generally tried to be proportionate,” he said of the group. Hezbollah’s senior leaders have said that they do not want any escalation.

A growing number of officials and analysts in Israel and over and beyond see Gaza as just one front in a larger war with Iran and have come to believe that an escalation with Hezbollah is all but inevitable. “My concern is that this is a diversionary tactic while they (Iran) are making unprecedented progress on their nuclear program,” said Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former national security adviser.

Amos Hochstein, global energy envoy of US President Joe Biden, said at a Carnegie Endowment event last month that even if both sides wanted to avoid war, they could stumble into one. “As Israel and Hezbollah continue to fire at each other on an almost daily basis, an accident or mistake could cause the situation to spiral out of control,” he said.

Hochstein has become the Biden administration’s point man in talks aimed at de-escalating tensions along the border. He is holding talks this week with officials in Lebanon and Israel.

“I worry every day that there could be a miscalculation or an accident, that a misguided missile aimed at a specific target misses or hits something else,” Hochstein said. “That could force the political system in both countries to retaliate, plunging us into war.”

The Israeli government is under increasing pressure to find a solution that would allow the approximately 60,000 people displaced by the fighting to return to their homes in communities along the northern border when the new school year begins in September.

“There is political pressure from both directions,” Byman said. “A massive, all-out war that forces Israelis into shelters across the country with no end in sight is not particularly politically attractive either.”

Analysts have described the October 7 Hamas-led attacks as a page from Hezbollah’s playbook, noting that the group trained for a ground offensive against Israel for years. Even if negotiations succeed in halting the rocket attacks, the fear of another Hezbollah attack is likely to complicate efforts to restore a sense of security to the Israelis.

“If you simply stop the fire from both sides, you are essentially going back to the status quo of October 6, and that will not allow Israelis to safely return to their homes,” Hochstein said at the Carnegie event. He said a broader agreement was needed to allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes.