Are Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war?

While the cross-border fire forced about 60,000 Israelis and 100,000 Lebanese from their homes, neither side was inclined to escalate the skirmishes and risk a full-scale war, knowing the destructive consequences of such a showdown. Israel had little appetite to open a second front against Iran’s most formidable proxy while it was actively fighting a grinding war in Gaza. Meanwhile, neither Hezbollah – under growing domestic pressure amid public discontent with Lebanon’s enduring economic crisis – nor its patrons in Tehran – now betting on regional de-escalation to obtain sanctions relief and bolster the regime’s stability – had an interest in going to war on behalf of Hamas.

But after nearly a year of contained clashes, something shifted in Israel’s strategic calculus that led it to dramatically raise the stakes and expand the confrontation with Hezbollah last week.

First came the attacks on Sept. 17 and 18 using remotely detonated Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies, which not only killed dozens and injured thousands of the organization’s members but also crippled its communications network. Two days later, the IDF assassinated Hezbollah’s top military commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with the entire chain of command of the group’s elite Radwan unit while they were holding an in-person meeting in a residential building in Beirut. (Aqil’s predecessor, Fuad Shukr, had been killed by an Israeli strike in the same Beirut neighborhood back in July.)

Then, on Monday, Israel launched a massive aerial campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds across the country – primarily in southern Lebanon but also in the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut’s Dahiyah suburb – and destroying tens of thousands of rocket launchers and weapons depots. More than 550 people (including at least 50 children) were killed that day alone – nearly half the total number of Lebanese fatalities during the entire 2006 war with Israel. One of yesterday’s airstrikes also took out the commander in charge of Hezbollah's rocket and missile division.

As many as half a million Lebanese have already fled for the north as Israel looks set to intensify its bombardments over the coming days and weeks, threatening to expand the conflict even further.

What changed? What is Israel’s new endgame? And will Israel’s actions or Hezbollah’s response trigger an all-out war?

Two fronts, no more

Here’s what didn’t change: Some 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes for almost a year. That may not sound like a lot, but in proportional terms, it’s the equivalent of the entire population of the state of New Mexico (2.2 million) being evacuated for a year.

These people have grown frustrated at their inability to sleep in their own beds – or send their children to their schools – and they’ve become a thorn in the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Although the Israeli government regularly vowed to do something to allow them to return home, everyone understood that confronting Hezbollah was a distraction Israel couldn’t afford while the fight against Hamas was still ongoing.

But major military operations in Gaza are now winding down. While a negotiated cease-fire remains out of reach, the Israelis have so thoroughly degraded Hamas’ offensive capabilities, destroyed its tunnels, and decapitated its leadership that there’s not much more left for them to accomplish in the Strip. The IDF is accordingly withdrawing most troops from Gaza, freeing them to be deployed elsewhere (read: to the north) if needed.

Moreover, while most Israelis blame their government for the failure to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas, there is widespread public support for a campaign to return displaced residents to the border areas threatened by Hezbollah. This is critical for the embattled Netanyahu, who can leverage the opportunity to galvanize his fragile coalition, boost his popularity amid mounting domestic tensions, and extend his tenure in office. He also has a chance to rewrite his legacy and become the prime minister who neutralized the threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, instead of the one who oversaw the worst intelligence and military failure in the country’s history.

Escalate to de-escalate

Despite its expansion of the bounds of escalation, Israel’s government does not appear to be trying to provoke a full-fledged war, destroy Hezbollah, or occupy any (let alone all) sovereign Lebanese territory. Its goal, made official last week, is more limited: to fulfill its promise to return the approximately 60,000 displaced residents of the northern border communities to their homes and prevent Hezbollah from threatening their safety in the future.

The problem is that since Oct. 8, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has publicly insisted on conditioning a cease-fire in northern Israel to a cease-fire in Gaza, and the odds of the latter being agreed to anytime soon are slim to none (with Netanyahu and Hamas honcho Yahya Sinwar sharing the blame).

Israel is accordingly seeking to force Nasrallah to decouple Lebanon from Gaza, stop Hezbollah’s attacks on its northern communities, and move its troops and weapons stockpiles away from Israel’s border in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Established at the end of the 2006 war, this resolution calls for the withdrawal of all armed forces in the 18-mile stretch between Israel’s border and Lebanon’s Litani River.

The big question is whether Israel’s escalations over the past week are a prelude to a ground invasion to secure this buffer zone in southern Lebanon or a pressure campaign intended to compel Nasrallah to stand down without said invasion.

My take? Israel would strongly prefer not to have to resort to a large-scale ground incursion. The full-fledged war that it would cause entails much higher costs and risks than Israel wants, and Netanyahu is gambling the devastating show of force will render it unnecessary. Having said that, if the coming days and weeks of escalating military pressure fail to get Nasrallah to fold or trigger an unacceptably retaliatory escalation from Hezbollah (e.g., successful strikes on military installations, critical infrastructure, or cities, mass civilian casualty attacks, assassinations of military or political leaders, etc.), Israel would probably be willing – and certainly ready – to go all the way to achieve its objective.

Hezbollah’s dilemma

Nasrallah made a strategic blunder when he tied Hezbollah’s fate to a Gaza cease-fire. Again and again, he doubled down by publicly insisting on this linkage. Now his organization has been dealt the worst blow in its history, and he’s stuck with no good options to respond.

There’s no doubt that Nasrallah feels compelled to reciprocate Israel’s escalations, but Hezbollah has no effective means to do so without risking all-out war against an overwhelmingly superior adversary. Unlike the bounded confrontation we’re currently seeing, a full-scale war would entail intensive and sustained strikes by both sides on each other’s critical and state infrastructure (including electricity and energy assets, ports, and airports) as well as densely populated civilian areas. It would also feature Israeli tanks and boots battling inside Lebanon.

That is a war Hezbollah knows it can’t possibly win – and one that both the Lebanese public and the group’s Iranian backers desperately oppose. This is especially true after the events of the past week, which have severely degraded the group’s military capabilities, eliminated most of its leaders, dented its morale, and compromised its power to coordinate a response.

At the same time, Nasrallah has no face-saving way to walk back his threats to continue attacking Israel until there’s a Gaza cease-fire. But what good is keeping his word to the Palestinians if Hezbollah gets destroyed in the process?

What I expect, therefore, is neither full capitulation nor full defiance. Nasrallah will keep up his tough rhetoric and refuse to comply with UN Resolution 1701, but Hezbollah will quietly bow to the pressure to let up its attacks against northern Israel. The IDF’s intensifying air campaign, meanwhile, will turn southern Lebanon into a ghost town as civilians and fighters continue to evacuate the area, making it easier for a small contingent of Israeli troops to eventually set up a buffer zone with minimal resistance and allowing the 60,000 displaced to return home. Hezbollah’s deterrence will suffer greatly, but the tip of the Iranian spear in the Levant will live to fight another day.

Danger ahead

Of course, I could be wrong. There’s a lot of uncertainty and it’s ultimately a close call, with lots of room for accidents and unintended escalations.

But even if I’m right and all-out war doesn’t break out between Israel and Hezbollah, the regional situation will still remain exceptionally dangerous. Other Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are determined to continue the fight. The two-state solution is all but dead. Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank are being driven to desperation, their prospects of living normal lives deteriorating wildly before our eyes. The powerless Lebanese are watching as their moribund economy takes yet another hit. The impact all of this is having on the Arab public mood, normalization efforts with Israel, and radicalization and extremism cannot be overstated.