A full-blown Israel-Hezbollah war will be much more deadly than the last one

“Approved and validated”. That’s the word from Israel this week about operational plans for a military offensive inside Lebanon against Hezbollah. And the response from Hezbollah? Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, says there will be “no rules” and “no ceilings” if the long-awaited reckoning between the two takes place.

Since 8 Oct, Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel in a show of support for Gaza following the massacres Hamas carried out the day before. It says it has carried out more than 2,100 military operations over the past eight months. Israel has been returning fire. At least 60,000 Israelis who fled from the border region remain out of their homes as do a similar number of Lebanese on the other side. Sixteen Israeli military personnel and 11 civilians have been killed inside Israel, while more than 80 Lebanese civilians have died, and Hezbollah has named more than 300 of its fighters as fatalities.

Until recently, both sides calibrated their firepower – enough to have an effect, not enough to spark an all-out war. This month, that has changed and both sides recognize that these are the most critical weeks since the fighting began. Israel had mostly confined its air and artillery strikes to targets between the Litani River and the border from where the majority of the Hezbollah rockets have been fired. This is the ‘”demilitarized” region in which Hezbollah is not allowed to operate under the UN Resolution 1701, passed after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. However, since then, the UN force – mandated to establish “an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL” – has instead watched Hezbollah fortify the towns and villages south of the river and stockpile munitions.

Last month, as the IDF advanced into Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah increased the number of rockets it fired. On 11 June, the Israeli air force went far beyond the Litani River, which is about 20 miles from the border, and hit a target 80 miles inside Lebanon in the Baalbek region. On the receiving end was Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 whose compound is the delivery point for Iran’s supply of munitions via the land route of Iraq and Syria. It was probably the deepest IDF strike in the war to date. Then an airstrike killed the most high-ranking Hezbollah commander to die since 7 Oct. The group responded with its largest barrage of rockets, firing more than 200 missiles into Israel in just one day. 

Since then, Hezbollah’s rockets have sparked wildfires across large swathes of northern Israel and each side has issued warnings to the other. Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, “In a total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard”. Hezbollah released drone video footage of Haifa (Israel’s third largest city) and said it has “a bank of targets” it will hit with precision strikes. Nasrallah even warned nearby Cyprus that, if Israel launched attacks from its tiny Eastern Mediterranean territory (an unlikely scenario), Hezbollah would consider it an act of war by Cyprus.

This column said this moment would arrive, although it has come many weeks later than predicted. That is because the IDF has moved slowly in Gaza and only now is approaching the end of major combat operations and beginning to focus more on the north. Success in degrading Hamas capabilities is why the government has lifted restrictions on the Israeli communities living near the Gaza border.

If a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah does happen it will be much worse than the 2006 conflict. Then Hezbollah was not part of the Lebanese government and Israel confined most of its attacks to Hezbollah targets, this time there would be far more death and destruction. The Lebanese people are increasingly anxious. There is zero political stability and the economy, already on its knees from mismanagement, has been further undermined by the collapse of tourism and investment.

The Israelis know that if they choose to go into Lebanon on the ground, they will face thousands of well-equipped and battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters who have years of experience fighting in Syria. The IDF would suffer serious casualty numbers. But the political mood is that the situation in the north cannot be allowed to continue. With tens of thousands of Israelis unable to work in the border region, the economy is suffering. The new school year begins on 1 September and parents are asking what the government is going to do to allow their children a normal life.

It’s a big decision for both sides and one which has wider regional ramifications. If it comes to a full-blown conflict, Syria will be involved because Hezbollah fighters will operate from Syrian territory. The Houthis in Yemen, and the Shia militias in Iraq, will not let the movement pass without some involvement including targeting American forces, and Iran might repeat its recent missile attack on Israel which this time would result in a harder retaliation from Israel than the one in April.

A massive escalation is not inevitable, but something must change to avoid it. The US envoy, Amos Hochstein, has stayed on in the region after visiting Israel and Lebanon despite acknowledging he had reached a dead end in efforts to avoid a “greater war”. His job is complicated by Hezbollah’s insistence that it will not stop its rocket fire unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s insistence that it must fight on until its hostages are freed, and Hamas’ insistence that it will not free them until the Israelis leave Gaza.

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