Beirut, Lebanon – Hezbollah is preparing for different scenarios as the low-intensity conflict between it and Israel threatens to escalate into something larger.
Fueling the idea of Israel shifting military focus from Gaza to Lebanon are statements from officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Sunday that Israel is ending operations in Rafah and will redirect to Lebanon.
Serious Israeli military action in Lebanon would draw in regional and possibly international actors.
Israel’s attacks to date have displaced almost 100,000 people from their homes in southern Lebanon and killed at least 435 people, around 349 of them identified by Hezbollah as its members.
Hezbollah appears to be standing firm, matching Israeli rhetoric with its own, and intensifying its cross-border attacks – which have so far killed 15 Israeli soldiers and 10 civilians, according to Israel.
The two have been negotiating attacks across the border since the day after Israel’s war against Gaza began on October 7, the day a Hamas-led operation in Israel killed 1,139 people, according to the AFP news agency.
Ceasefire or bankruptcy
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeated in speeches since October that his group will only stop cross-border attacks on Israel when the latter agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
Even if Israel turns most of its military attention to Lebanon, analysts believe Hezbollah will maintain its position.
“I do not believe that Hezbollah will accept [negotiations] in the absence of a ceasefire [in Gaza],” said Amal Saad, author of two books on Hezbollah. “The war will continue.
“Nasrallah said they will continue to fight until Hamas is victorious and if Hamas is weakened and undermined, Hezbollah will not sit still. [its] hands,” she said.
“There is a strategic objective here… Hezbollah will not leave Hamas alone.”
The idea of a ceasefire appeared to have hit a snag when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners demanded a “complete defeat of Hamas” before the end of the war.
However, some Israeli officials have expressed doubts about the idea of a complete defeat of Hamas, stressing that Hamas is an idea and that ideas cannot be eradicated.
Military spokesman Daniel Hagari expressed such doubts on June 19, while National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi said the same on Tuesday, less than a week later.
Whether due to tacit acceptance of this idea or other considerations, Israel now speaks of a phase of lower intensity, in which, it claims, its military would continue to attack Hamas in Gaza while looking for a political alternative to the group in the enclave.
A lower-intensity war in Gaza would, in theory, allow a concentration in Lebanon – although this would require the Israeli military to execute the challenging prospect of engaging on two fronts.
Projecting strength
In turn, Nasrallah has demonstrated the power of his group and stood firm.
On June 19, he said that his group has more than 100,000 fighters and that many heads of regional armed groups have offered more fighters to join the fight against Israel, offers he rejected because Hezbollah is already “overloaded” with cadres.
A day before his speech, Hezbollah released drone footage captured over the Israeli city of Haifa, an implicit threat that the city could be targeted.
Another recent Hezbollah video showed what appears to be a series of targets inside Israel and in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Hezbollah is showing and simulating to Israel its options [to widen the] war… [this will make Israel] I understand that the repercussions are seriously expensive,” said Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University.
Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus, an island nation that is part of the European Union but not NATO, if it supported Israel in the war.
Cyprus responded that it does not cooperate militarily with Israel in any conflicts.
“Since October 8, Cyprus has been a key location where Israeli reservists fly to and then head to Israel,” Seth Krummrich, a former special forces officer who now works at risk management firm Global Guardian, told Al Jazeera. .
Israel has used Cypriot territory for training exercises in the past.
The threat was Nasrallah’s way of signaling “the European Union to refrain from supporting Israel in any way, which could imply [its] member states,” Salamey said.
Contingency plans
As both sides escalate and lay their cards on the table, Hezbollah will have some contingency plans.
“Hezbollah probably has a strategy ready in the event of a limited and prolonged war in southern Lebanon and has probably prepared a strategy in case there is a broader, large-scale war,” said Karim Emile Bitar, professor of international relations at the University of Lebanon. Saint Joseph. in Beirut, he said.
A limited war would be what Salamey called a “low-intensity asymmetric war of attrition” that bleeds “the enemy through efficient, low-cost and effective skirmishes” – basically a continuation of the current conflict.
A full-scale war could intensify attacks across Lebanon, including on infrastructure such as Beirut airport, as Israel did in 2006.
Some analysts believe a limited ground invasion of southern Lebanon is possible, although this would cause heavy casualties on both sides.
For Bitar, Hezbollah probably does not want that option. “Hezbollah, like the Iranian regime, realizes [an escalation] it would be extremely risky and devastating for Lebanon,” he said.
Intensified threats and military actions run parallel to diplomatic negotiations.
US special envoy Amos Hochstein was recently in Tel Aviv and Beirut, where he reportedly passed Hezbollah messages through Lebanese parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri.
According to unnamed Western diplomats who spoke to Axios, Hochstein told Hezbollah that it would be a mistake to assume the U.S. could prevent Israel from starting a broader war.
At the same time, Hezbollah and Israel are transmitting messages through French diplomats, Bitar said, looking for “a face-saving exit or strategy.”
If these negotiations could result in “guarantees to Israel that Hezbollah’s allies would not be present within a 6-10 km radius [4-6 mile] ray [from the border] and that they have no intention of using the [Hezbollah’s elite] Radwan Forces to Attack Israel” Hochstein’s efforts could bear fruit, Bitar said.
The parallel paths of diplomacy and military action are interconnected.
Still, there is an oft-repeated fear that a miscalculation could force an escalation, with neither side willing to give its opponents an opportunity to declare a moral victory.
A war could still be avoided barring this miscalculation or a political decision by Israel to move forward based on internal considerations.
For its part, Hezbollah maintained its position of demanding a ceasefire as the only precondition for stopping the fighting.
“We are in a situation where, on both sides, internal political considerations prevail,” said Bitar.
“Hezbollah is aware that the majority of Lebanese, including a significant part of its own supporters, do not want a new war,” he added.
“Both parties are taking these factors into consideration, but we are in a situation that is extremely volatile and any miscalculation by either party could lead to a new decision in its own right. [escalated conflict] in the region.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
