Israel’s war in Gaza has long been embedded in a broader regional conflict, with Iran; the Houthis in Yemen; and most importantly, the Lebanese Hezbollah also attacking Israel in the name of solidarity with Hamas. Each of these mini-conflicts risks becoming more intense after the back-to-back Israeli assassinations in late July of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps safe house in the heart of Tehran.
The conflict in Lebanon could go from limited war to all-out conflict, whether due to a miscalculation on Israel’s or Hezbollah’s part or due to a deliberate decision by either party that it is in their interest to fight what seems to be an inevitable war sooner rather than later. Should Israel launch an all-out war, it would be a difficult fight and one that is devastating to both Israel and Lebanon. And after the guns from this more massive conflict stop firing, Israel may find its conflict with Hezbollah unresolved, with little gained strategically even if Israel wins militarily. Israel is better off trying to bolster deterrence, even if that means that a Hezbollah threat continues to loom.
Before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israelis grudgingly accepted the presence of Hezbollah on their northern border. The 100,000 or so full- and part-time fighters that Hezbollah could muster as well as its massive rocket arsenal (far larger than that of Hamas) led an uneasy deterrence to prevail, with both sides recognizing that a war would be devastating. Both sides remembered their 34-day conflict in 2006. During that war, Hezbollah constantly rained down rockets on Israel and inflicted considerable losses on Israeli ground forces when they entered Lebanon, but also took heavy casualties in the process—far heavier than those of Israel. Neither side was eager for a repeat match in the years that followed.
The Oct. 7 attacks, however, upended this uneasy peace. In addition to thousands of strikes exchanged across the Israeli-Lebanese border since then, the Hamas invasion scarred Israel psychologically and killed almost 1,200 people, meaning that the country’s risk calculus is far different. Now, Israelis ask, if a surprise attack from the far weaker Hamas could prove so devastating, what suffering might an attack from the more formidable Hezbollah entail? If war seemed risky before, now peace and the associated complacency do.
Added to this fear is the dilemma of 60,000 displaced Israelis, who fled the north of the country in the face of Hezbollah attacks and may only return when they feel safe. Again, with Oct. 7 in mind, it is hard to assure citizens of safety so long as a real threat looms just across the border. Israel might go to war to destroy Hezbollah absolutely, as it seeks to do with Hamas, or at the least to push the group’s forces back beyond the Litani River, where it is supposed to be under the conditions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war.
It’s useful to go back to the aftermath of that war. After the conflict ended, Iran helped rearm Hezbollah and also poured reconstruction money into Lebanon, enabling the group to score political points with many of the communities devastated by the war. Hezbollah was also able to circumvent Resolution 1701, returning its fighters to the border with Israel under the guise of an environmental charity called “Green Without Borders.” The Lebanese government and military—and U.N. forces stationed in the area—were too weak to prevent the infiltration.
Iran’s support for Hezbollah hasn’t diminished since 2006. Tehran continues to work closely with Hezbollah and would be likely to provide significant financial and military support to the group in the aftermath of a renewed conflict with Israel. Indeed, Iran’s own largely failed attempt to strike unilaterally at Israel in April confirmed the value of having a formidable ally such as Hezbollah on Israel’s border. And supplying the militant group is even easier than it was in 2006, as Iran and its allies now control a land corridor linking Iran to Iraq, Iraq to Syria, and Syria to Lebanon, enabling the easier transfer of weapons to the group over land.
Should war come, Israel would find itself hard-pressed to sustain a conflict for long in Lebanon. Its military is exhausted by almost a year of war in Gaza, with many Israeli reservists having served multiple tours there. Spare parts, ammunition, and other essentials are also in relatively short supply for a sustained war. Thus, even a more massive war is likely to be one of limited duration, enabling Hezbollah to ride out the storm.
Hezbollah can also drag out the war. Part of Israel’s strategy in Gaza was to cut off Hamas forces, occupying different parts of the enclave and hunting down Hamas fighters to destroy the group. Lebanon is far bigger than Gaza, and Israel cannot simply drive its forces into the entire country in a short period of time. Realistically, the best that Israel could do would be to reoccupy parts of southern Lebanon, as it did between 1982 and 2000. During that period, constant low-level attacks inflicted steady casualties on Israel, leading it to eventually withdraw. Hezbollah today is far more formidable, and even if it suffered more losses than it felt it could handle, the bulk of its forces could retreat away from the border region and simply return when Israel left, or conduct regular guerrilla attacks at a time of its choosing should Israeli forces stay.
Israel would also face another wave of international and U.S. criticism if it were seen as the aggressor of a conflict in Lebanon. Already, world opinion of Israel is low due to the war in Gaza, and many younger Americans are particularly critical of Israel. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other regimes loathe Hezbollah and its Iranian backer, but the devastation of any war and the suffering of ordinary Lebanese civilians would turn their populations even more against Israel, making it impossible for them to support anti-Hezbollah operations.
Perhaps most important, as in Gaza, nothing solves the problem of governance in Lebanon. No rival group is remotely as strong as Hezbollah, giving the group free rein in the country. Thus, Hezbollah is not going away through military defeat or because another group in Lebanon suppressed it.
A deterrent approach would be better, and Hezbollah has signaled that it would cease attacks were there a cease-fire in Gaza. Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s point person on Lebanon, is commendably trying to broker a deal that would offer benefits for Lebanon and improve Israel’s security position.
Fortunately for Israel, Hezbollah differs from Hamas in ways that make deterrence more likely to hold. Hezbollah has had a healthy respect for Israel’s military power for many years, and the devastation of Gaza is yet another reminder that Israel plays for keeps. And the group’s leaders have shown that they care far more about Lebanon than Hamas cares about Gaza. Lebanon’s economy has imploded since 2019, and another war could lead to the country’s complete collapse—with Hezbollah blamed.
Such an approach is fundamentally unsatisfying: Although ideally a brokered peace would push Hezbollah’s fighters farther from Israel’s border, the group would remain a threat to Israel. Unsatisfying deterrence, however, is better than a devastating war that, in the end, would have an unsatisfying ending.
Strategy, however, has never been an Israeli strength. Israel’s military and intelligence service can be brilliant: The recent assassination of Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran is only the latest of many examples. But Israel’s national security decision-making is highly politicized, and short-term thinking dominates the calculus. Indeed, more than 10 months into the fighting in Gaza, Israel still lacks a realistic endgame.
This predilection for the short term may lead Israel to strike first and try to figure out a long-term goal later. Continued U.S. and allied pressure on Israel to avoid all-out war is necessary to give Israeli leaders political cover for avoiding a war that would be both costly and counterproductive.
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