Israel has taken on Hezbollah in Lebanon but will the escalation achieve its military objectives?

While the 11-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza still rages, Israel has expanded its military objectives to take on Hezbollah — one of the most powerful non-state actors — in southern Lebanon. This has triggered heightened concerns about full-scale hostilities in West Asia as the risks rapidly escalate of the conflict spilling over from Israel to Lebanon and Syria, ultimately involving Iran for supporting militias like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen. In his last speech to the UN, US President Joseph Biden stated that a “full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest, even if the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible”. Unfortunately, that solution is a distant prospect with the fading hopes of a US, Egypt, and Qatar-mediated ceasefire in Gaza. The only ground for cautious optimism is the measured response so far of Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who hoped Tehran could avoid being dragged into acting in a way “not worthy of it”. Pezeshkian, too, expressed fears of a regional conflagration but said Hezbollah, which Tehran helped to found in 1982, “cannot stand alone” against Israel.

Israel’s determination to destroy Hezbollah clearly has ratcheted up tensions in West Asia. Israel and Hezbollah have been shelling and launching missile strikes against each other’s positions since last October, forcing 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the northern border region. Israeli strikes too have displaced 500,000 people from southern Lebanon. But hostilities escalated after Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s top commander in Beirut in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Golan Heights that killed a dozen children in end-July. Later in August, Israel launched airstrikes to destroy thousands of rocket launch barrels of Hezbollah. But the dramatic flare-up happened on September 17 and 18 when thousands of Hezbollah members were severely injured — and many killed — when the pagers and walkie-talkies they carried exploded. This Israeli hit dealt a body blow to the militia’s communications network. Massive Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon since then have taken out more Hezbollah leaders, including its top missile commander, besides inflicting massive civilian casualties.

The question naturally is, what is Israel’s endgame? There is a clear and present danger of overreach and possibility of committing a strategic blunder as in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon. Kim Ghattas, distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, has perceptively observed that “every time Israel crosses the Iranian’s camp’s red lines, with bold strikes or assassinations, and faces limited fire, it feels emboldened to try again and push further. One day, it will push too far”. There are bound to be shades of 1982 if the constant air strikes are a pretext to send troops to force Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. Israel may have struck blows to the militia’s command and control system but Hezbollah so far hasn’t budged from its positions.

More than four decades ago, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon vowed in vain to destroy the Yasser Arafat-led Palestine Liberation Organization by invading southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is an offspring of that ill-fated invasion and has never left Lebanon since then. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly vows to destroy Hezbollah but will not find that objective attainable any more than in 1982 or even later in 2006 when a UN-sponsored ceasefire ended its hostilities with Hezbollah. If Iran steps in to help a weakened Hezbollah, this conflict is bound to engulf the region.