Increasingly, after nearly 9 months of the Israel – hamas war, analysts see Gaza as just one front in a wider war against Iran’s “ring-of-fire” muslim proxies surrounding Israel and that an escalation with Hezbollah is all but inevitable.
It is on the record that shortly after Hamas’s brutal terrorist attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel nearly launched a pre emptive attack against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on the basis of the Israeli intelligence assessment that Hezbollah was on the verge of crossing the border into northern Israel as part of a multi-pronged attack.
Israeli officials apparently notified the White House around 6:30 a.m. on October 11, 2023, that they were considering pre emptive strikes and requested U.S. support, but were talked down by the Biden administration skeptical of Israel’s intelligence that an attack was imminent.
While politicians try to dial down the increasingly frequent and strident rhetoric of Nasrallah’s diatribes against Israel, America and……Cyprus, Israel has significantly increased movement of personnel and materiel up to its northern border.
Nasrallah is aware of this, and this explains his recent nervousness and belligerence as expounded in his near daily TV pronuncements. From his bunker.
Indisputably, Hezballah poses a big strategic threat to Israel in that a war between Israel and Hezballah will involve large scale destruction of Israeli essential infrastructure such as electricity, banking, road transport, hospitals and so on.
Hezballah’s much larger (than hamas’) arsenal of drones, rockets, heavy mortars and missiles is estimated to overwhelm Israels air defense systems in the initial say, 5000 rocket onslaught and leave Israels largest cities vulnerable to be picked off by Hezballahs precision munitions. And then, it is not clear how a crippled Israeli air defense system could effectively defend against 800 or 900 rockets a day for the next 120 or so days from Hezballahs estimated 120-200,000 munitions arsenal.
With its participation in the Syrian war, Hezballah now has battle hardened troops and has, since its last war with Israel in 2006, greatly enhanced and expanded its stocked of smart and dumb Iranian arms and munitions.
And, like hamas in Gaza, Hezballah is believed to have an even more sophisticated tunnel network from which it is alleged they were on the brink of using in a near identical attack around October 2023, before they were pipped at the post by Hamas on October 7 in what some analysts described as a page straight out of Hezballah’s own playbook.
So, will Israel eventually open a war front against Nasrallah in Lebanon?
I think the answer is yes.
You see, Nasrallah saying that once there is a ceasefire in Gaza, he will stop Hezballah rocket attacks in the north may sound reasonable.
It is nothing of the sort..
A ceasefire in gaza and lebanon leaves Israel exactly as it was on October 6 2023 with Hamas controlling Gaza, and Hezballah back with their noses pressed against the Lebanese Israeli fence line in breach of UNSCR 1701 where the area south of the Litani River was to be demilitarised and then secured by UNIFL at the end of the 2006 second Lebanese war
Neither thing happened and now, with Israel’s 80,000 northern border residents displaced over eight months and who are fearful of returning because of a potential reprise of the October 7 Hamas tactic of a cross border raid and hostage taking, the Israeli government is under extreme pressure to restore both security and deterrence in Israel’s north.
Surrounded by ever more sophisticated and brazen hostile terror entities, I do not believe that in a third war against Levanon, Israel will be constrained by any touchy feely concepts of proportionality or civilian damage or body count. The stakes against hezballah as the most heavily armed and hostile iranian proxy on Israels contiguous border are just too high strategically.
I am not sure whether some analysts’ predictions of near apocalyptic destruction of south Levanon up to and including Beirut in the west and Baalbek in the Shouf mountains in the east are not a bit overenthusiastic, but it is clear that Hezballah in Levanon cannot, and must not, be allowed to continue to dictate where Israelis may live in their own sovereign territory up to the international border of sovereign Lebanon.
And Hezballah may not, at any time in future, decide it can continue to act as a military force multiplier if in that future, Israel responds militarily to an attack by any other muslim militia, army or terror entity in the region that is not Lebanese.
Together with that, the current low level war of attrition in the north is not something Israel can keep up indefinitely and it may be that an IDF tired by 8 months of fighting in Gaza, may decide to make a definitive crushing military statement in Levanon to put an end to Nasrallahs posturing; possibly forever.
Hamas’ October 7 surprise attack, massacres and atrocities created a national mass trauma event in Israel affecting an unprecedented proportion of the country’s population.
Consequently, Israel’s risk tolerance has changed and that now includes ensuring that Hezballah’s elite Radwan forces are not poised on Israel’s border, as they were before October 7, 2023.
Both Israel and Lebanon would suffer greatly in an Israel- Hezballah war. Nasrallah may not be persuaded by Israeli attempts at deterrence even though Hezbollah holds dear things such as the lives of its leaders, its power in Lebanon, and the well-being of its constituents. After all, Nasrallah is a Lebanese boy and he doesnt want to take any responsibility for completely destroying Lebanon’s already rock-bottom economy or its shaky infrastructure. The fallout could well finish off Hezballah which would have dragged Lebanon into yet another war the Lebanese people did not want.
For its part, and post October 7, Israel cannot continue to take even a small chance that Hezballah will attack Israel.
With Israel wrapping up Rafiah operations in the next 3-4 weeks, Nasrallah realises that Israel is now freer to escalate agsinst what has, till now, been a Hezballah-run timetable where Hezballah decides the time and place to attack and where Israel then responds/reacts……
As Ghaddar pointed out in May 2024, the end of the main IDF op in Rafiah means that Nasrallah will be forced to choose between two undesirable options: enter a full-scale war or accept the conditions that U.S. and French diplomats have been proposing recently.
Hopefully, for all concerned, and despite Amos Hochstein’s current lack of success as a Hezballah Israel mediator, Nasrallah will make the right choice. For himself and Levanon.
And even if the odds dont look good because Nasrallah and Hezballah consider themselves leaders of the broader Muslim struggle against, in their opinion, the illegality of Israel, we shall have to wait and see what transpires.
C.R.A.P - Countering Racist Anti-Israel Propaganda 