Chiara Polverini | 02 July 2024

Summary

• Hezbollah’s strikes in northern Israel intensified following the beginning of Israeli military operations in Rafah.

• Despite both parties stating the preference for a diplomatic solution, they both refuse to initiate de-escalation and to follow third-party mediation.

• Hezbollah's progressive deployment of its new and technological arsenal is posing a serious threat to Israel who vowed to restore security and be ready for a full-scale war.

Parallel to the war in Gaza, Israel has been trading fire for eight months with Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border. This daily exchange of violence saw peaks of tension with the killings of Hezbollah members and the striking of Israel’s sophisticated security apparatus. For months now, both sides threatened major escalation. In Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s forum, both influential far-right Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir called for a deep invasion of Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks in northern Israel continue. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) offence in Rafah at the beginning of May triggered the intensifying of Hezbollah’s strikes in north Israel. In response, the Party-of-God chiefs announced the use of new weapons and swore to enter into war unless the IDF withdrew from the Gaza Strip.

The already critical situation further escalated after the group sent over 200 rockets to the north of Israel on the 12th of June in retaliation for an attack that killed the senior military commander Taleb Sami Abdullah. This was the biggest attack by Hezbollah since the conflict in Gaza, and it materialised the risk of a full-scale war against Israel.

The international community has been mediating the possibility of de-escalation for months, insisting that a regional spillover would aggravate the already high-stakes scenario. Back in April, the European Union urged Iran's proxies to withdraw and the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. More recently, United States President’s Special Envoy Amos Hochstein visited Jerusalem and Beirut to address security concerns with leaders on both sides. In his win-win framework, de-escalation in the Israeli-Lebanese border would facilitate a ceasefire in Gaza, the resolution of the Blue Line dispute and the return of displaced people in the affected areas in the proximity of the border. Despite both Israel and Hezbollah declaring to prefer the diplomatic way, both continue with a cross-border deterrence game in which no one wants to be the first to quit.

Hezbollah is the most armed non-state actor in the world. Their growth in experience, technology and military power after the last active conflict with Israel in 2006 now poses a real challenge. From the early days of escalation in October 2023, Hezbollah's goals have been to find the blind spots in Israel’s defence system and to paralyse critical security assets such as the Iron Dome. Their current arsenal amounts to 150.000 missiles and rockets, among which around 70.000 are small and unguided, approximately 100 precision-guided, and the rest for medium and long-range. The group also deployed more effective drones of different ranges, as demonstrated by the nine-minute footage across military sites near Haifa. Throughout this tit-for-tat, Hezbollah increasingly showed the possession of more sophisticated weapons to confront Israel. As the cross-border strikes get deeper into each other's territory and third-party de-escalation attempts become ineffective, wider military confrontation seems inevitable.

Forecast

• Short-term

  • The breakout of a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah will be devastating. An invasion of southern Lebanon is unlikely to happen, as this would imply an immediate escalation with Iran and its proxies. Moreover, Israel’s typical strategy of moving the conflict into the enemy’s territory can represent a disadvantage this time. The Shia militias have a vast knowledge of the area and land warfare. Israel will recur to the Israeli Air Force, it will intensify the strikes in the south and focus on targets in the Beqaa Valley and toward Beirut, as Netanyahu already threatened. In the immediate, they will try to achieve the creation of a buffer zone and retreat Hezbollah’s militia back to the Litani River.

• Medium-term

  • Nasrallah's statement about no place being safe in Israel in case of war is more than an attempt to sound intimidating. Hezbollah’s cracks in Israel’s defence, facilities and society are getting bigger. In a scenario where the Israeli Air Force intervenes, Hezbollah would deploy a significant part of its precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and drones to overwhelm the Iron Dome, target energy infrastructures, and displace more civilians. Overall, it would be extremely costly for Israel to open its northern front. Hezbollah instead has different interests at stake. To Iran’s axis of resistance, defending Lebanese citizens is not a priority as much as causing damage to the Israeli ones. In case of military confrontation, they would face fewer restraints in the attacks without fearing the consequences of retaliation. Finally, undermining Israel as the hegemonic force in the region can lead to an advantage in future negotiations over contested territories in the Golan Heights.

• Long-term

  • The outcome of the US elections and the status of normalisation between Tel Aviv and Riyadh may determine the escalation of a wider regional conflict. Up until now, US mediation has not succeeded in a ceasefire in Gaza, de-escalation with Iran’s proxies, or normalisation. New US leadership can opt for a hard-liner approach to re-establishing a balance of power in the region and further isolate Tehran.