Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?

Analysis Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?
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Fires burn as a result of rockets launched from Lebanon into northern Israel, next to the city of Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanon border, on June 3, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
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Updated 06 June 2024
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Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?

Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?
  • In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, the violence has expanded both in scope and intensity in recent weeks
  • Since October, at least 455 people have died in Lebanon, including 88 civilians, and at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians in Israel

DUBAI: Tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have continued to escalate since violence along the shared border first erupted in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the Gaza conflict.

In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, the low-intensity conflict has expanded both in scope and intensity in recent weeks, leading to fears of an imminent full-scale war.

The violence since early October has killed at least 455 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the army.

INNUMBERS

• 4,900 Attacks launched by Israel against southern Lebanon since Oct. 7.

• 1,100 Attacks by Hezbollah against Israel and Israeli occupied territories in Lebanon. Source: ACLED

Israel has carried out nearly 4,900 attacks in southern Lebanon since Oct. 7, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) Project.

ACLED says Hezbollah has launched around 1,100 attacks on Israel as well as territories it has occupied in Lebanon over the same period.

Israeli strikes have made the entire border area in southern Lebanon a no-go zone, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people, according to the UN migration agency, IOM. The same is true in northern Israel, where Hezbollah attacks have displaced 80,000 residents.




Israelis evacuated from northern areas near the Lebanese border due to ongoing cross-border tensions, rally near the northern Amiad Kibbutz, demanding to return home on May 23, 2024. (AFP)

Since the tit-for-tat attacks began, Lebanese officials and communities living along the border have been braced for a potential escalation into a conflict of a scale not seen since the 2006 war.

In recent months, influential Israeli officials have been calling on the government to mount a new military operation to push Hezbollah away from Israel’s northern border.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday that Israel is close to making a decision regarding Hezbollah’s daily attacks, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.




Israel's military Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi (C) walks among army officers during a situational assessment on the Lebanese border area on February 1, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. (Israeli Army handout via AFP) 

“We are approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision,” Halevi said during an assessment with military officials and Fire Commissioner Eyal Caspi, at an army base in Kiryat Shmona.

“We have been attacking for eight months, and Hezbollah is paying a very, very high price. It has increased its strengths in recent days and we are prepared after a very good process of training … to move to an attack in the north.”

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett tore into Benjamin Netanyahu’s government this week, claiming the north of Israel had been abandoned. “We must save the north,” he said in a statement. “The Galilee is going up in flames. The fire is spreading.




Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, shown in this photo taken on January 15, 2024, claims that the north of Israel had been abandoned by the Netanyahu government. (AFP/File photo)

“Beautiful and flourishing places have turned into heaps of rubble. Some residents who were evacuated are already planning their lives elsewhere. This is a grave strategic event and can in no way be normalized.”

Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, has said the militia’s campaign will continue as long as the war rages in Gaza.

In a speech last week, he said the attacks are “pressuring Israel,” and that while the battle concerns Palestine, it also concerns “the future of Lebanon and its water and oil resources.”

Should a full-scale war break out, Nasrallah said Hezbollah has “surprises” in store for Israel. Indeed, many region watchers expect any conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to be far more devastating and costly for both sides than the war in Gaza.




Hassan Nasrallah (2nd from R), leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, met with Iranian officials as Hezbollah supporters braced for a spike, right, in Israeli reprisals. (AFP)

Nasrallah’s comments followed statements by Yaov Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, who warned Lebanon would “pay the price” for Hezbollah’s actions, saying “if you will continue, we will accelerate.”

Although both sides have raised the rhetorical ante, Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg believes an all-out war with Hezbollah would be a disastrous overreach for Israel.

“Israel cannot afford a two-front war,” he told Arab News. “That is not sustainable. Hezbollah will be able to reach the Israeli heartland with its rockets. Israel is already imploding. More than 100,000 Israelis seem to have been permanently displaced.”

Nevertheless, if Prime Minister Netanyahu were to present a new war in Lebanon as the only viable option to allow displaced Israelis to return home, then “there is a good possibility that he can rally enough support,” said Goldberg.

“In a way, a war in Lebanon is something Israel’s professional warmongers have been pitching for years. Also, Israel is really hard up for solutions that would return people to the north. So popular support is there to be tapped.”




Map showing the border between Lebanon and Israel, where tit-for-tat bombardment between Israeli and Hezbollah forces had displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides. (AFP)

Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden for energy and investment, who brokered the maritime boundary agreement between Lebanon and Israel in late 2022, recently proposed a road map to peace between Israel and Hezbollah.

“I’m not expecting peace, everlasting peace, between Hezbollah and Israel,” Hochstein said in an interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March.

“But if we can reach a set of understandings and ... take away some of the impetus for conflict and establish for the first time ever, a recognized border between the two, I think that will go a long way.”

Hezbollah, however, has conditioned any agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing any deal would require the consent of both parties.

Michael Young, author and senior editor at Carnegie Middle East, believes that despite its continued provocations, Hezbollah does not want a full-scale war with Israel.

“Everything they’ve shown, up till now, proves that they are avoiding one at all costs,” Young told Arab News. “Sure, they have escalated in response to Israeli escalations, but clearly they are not looking for one.

“If there is war, I don’t think there will be support from large segments of Lebanese society, and Hezbollah knows this. Even though there is anger with Israel, they will not support one.

“There is criticism from outside the Shiite community. The reason why Hezbollah is careful not to engage in a full-scale war is that it knows support from society will dissolve very quickly.”

Hezbollah on Tuesday said one of its members who lived in the Naqoura area was killed in an Israeli strike, and that its fighters launched “a slew of explosive-laden drones” at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for the attack on the coastal town.




People pray during the funeral of the two brothers, Ali and Mohammed Qassem, who were killed by an Israeli strike in the Lebanese village of Houla near the border with Israel on June 2, 2024. (REUTERS)

It also claimed other attacks on Israeli troops and positions.

The Israeli army said in a statement that “fighter jets struck a Hezbollah terrorist” in Naqoura as well as hitting other sites.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah said its fighters had mounted a rocket attack against an Israeli army base in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, “scoring direct hits, igniting a fire and destroying parts of it,” according to militia statements.

The Israeli army confirmed the attack had taken place, with images of damaged infrastructure published by local media.

On Sunday night, the social media account of Green Southerners, a Lebanese civil society group dedicated to preserving national heritage, released videos purportedly showing massive fires around the border village of Al-Adisa.

The group claimed the fires were caused by Israel’s use of the incendiary weapon white phosphorus, and accused Israel of committing an act of “ecocide,” as the fires destroyed trees, farmland and animal habitats.




An Israeli army soldier artillery shells at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel . Lebanon has accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds, in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment. (AFP)

Twenty four hours later, massive fires were ignited by suspected Hezbollah attacks on the Israeli side of the border around Kiryat Shmona. Civilians were ordered to evacuate as firefighters battled the flames.

Israeli officials said more than 2,500 acres of land were affected by the fires, claiming it could take years for the land to recover.

On Monday, Hezbollah said it had fired Katyusha rockets toward Israeli bases in the occupied Golan Heights. For the first time since the outbreak of violence in October, the militia said it had launched a squadron of drones.

The Israeli military confirmed the attacks, stating it had intercepted one drone carrying explosives while two others fell in northern Israel.

For as long as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza rages and Hezbollah continues to pose a threat to the towns and villages of northern Israel, the potential for escalation remains high




A Lebanese firefighter from the Islamic Sanitary Committee douses a fire that swept over fields hit by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 3, 2024. (AFP) 

The consequences, however, would be severe for all parties.

“I think Hezbollah has demonstrated it is committed to tit for tat,” said Israeli analyst Goldberg. “If Israel invades — and invade it must, if it wants a war — I think Hezbollah will likely retaliate in kind.”

And although Hezbollah has the means to cause significant damage to Israeli cities with its arsenal of Iranian-supplied weapons, it is crisis-wracked Lebanon that has the most to lose in the event of a full-scale war.

Indeed, the 2019 financial crisis and the failure to establish a new government has plunged much of the population into poverty, left public services and infrastructure in tatters, and even risked reopening old sectarian wounds.

“Should there be a war, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to put Lebanon back together as it was or even as it is today,” said Young of Carnegie Middle East.

“Already the sectarian social contract is falling apart. How do you do this after a very destructive war?”


 


Three Israeli hostages, over 300 Palestinian prisoners set to be exchanged today

Three Israeli hostages, over 300 Palestinian prisoners set to be exchanged today
Updated 15 February 2025
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Three Israeli hostages, over 300 Palestinian prisoners set to be exchanged today

Three Israeli hostages, over 300 Palestinian prisoners set to be exchanged today
  • As with previous exchanges, a stage was set up and the area was festooned with Palestinian flags and the banners of Palestinian groups
  • The truce that began nearly four weeks ago had been jeopardized in recent days by a tense dispute that threatened to renew the fighting

KHAN YOUNIS: Hamas fighters have gathered in the southern Gaza Strip for the release of three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for more than 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The three are Iair Horn, 46, Sagui Dekel Chen, 36, and Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29. All have dual citizenships. Horn was abducted along with his brother, Eitan, who remains in captivity.
As with previous exchanges, a stage was set up and the area was festooned with Palestinian flags and the banners of militant factions. Nearby was the shell of a heavily damaged multistory building.
The militants are expected to parade the hostages before crowds and cameras before handing them over to the Red Cross.
The truce that began nearly four weeks ago had been jeopardized in recent days by a tense dispute that threatened to renew the fighting.
US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to remove more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and settle them elsewhere in the region has cast even more doubt on the future of the ceasefire.
But Hamas said Thursday it would move ahead with the release of more hostages after talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials. The group said the mediators had pledged to “remove all hurdles” to assure Israel would allow more tents, medical supplies and other essentials into Gaza.
It will be the sixth swap since the ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19. So far, 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners have been freed during the first phase of the truce.
As with previous exchanges, dozens of masked, armed Hamas fighters lined up near a stage festooned with Palestinian flags and the banners of militant factions while music blared from loudspeakers.
The militants are expected to parade the hostages before crowds and cameras onto the stage, which has been set up near a heavily damaged multistory building, before handing them over to the Red Cross. The humanitarian organization will then transport them to Israeli force.


Sudan’s RSF attacks famine-stricken camp as battle lines harden

Sudan’s RSF attacks famine-stricken camp as battle lines harden
Updated 15 February 2025
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Sudan’s RSF attacks famine-stricken camp as battle lines harden

Sudan’s RSF attacks famine-stricken camp as battle lines harden
  • RSF trying to consolidate control in Darfur
  • Hunger monitor has confirmed famine in three camps

CAIRO/DUBAI: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have attacked the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp, residents and medics say, as the paramilitary tries to tighten its grip on its Darfur stronghold while losing ground to the army in the capital, Khartoum.
The latest fighting has hardened battle lines between the two forces in a conflict that threatens to splinter Sudan after plunging half the population into hunger and displacing more than one-fifth since April 2023.
This week, as it attempts to consolidate its territory, the RSF has staged multiple attacks on Zamzam residents, according to three people at the camp.
Medical aid agency MSF has confirmed seven deaths from the violence, while residents say dozens may have been killed. Medics are unable to perform surgery inside Zamzam, and travel to Al-Fashir’s Saudi hospital, a frequent RSF target, has become impossible, MSF said.
Reuters verified a video showing RSF forces inside Zamzam earlier this week, stamping on a rival flag as a building burned in the background.
Zamzam is located near Al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur and the army’s last remaining foothold in the wider Darfur region.
The RSF, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, says Zamzam is a base for the Joint Forces, former rebel groups now fighting alongside the army.
The Joint Forces said in a statement on Thursday that they were not present in the camp. The Sudanese government said the army, Joint Forces, and other volunteers were able to push the RSF back from Zamzam on Wednesday.
ARSON ATTACKS
Nearly 22 months after war erupted from a power struggle between the two factions, the RSF controls almost all of Darfur in Sudan’s west, and much of the neighboring Kordofan region. The army controls Sudan’s north and east and has recently made major gains in Khartoum.
Next week, a “political charter” setting up a parallel government in RSF-controlled territories will be signed, with the announcement of a cabinet coming soon after, Ibrahim Al-Mirghani, a politician who supports the effort, told Reuters.
The RSF has targetted Zamzam with artillery for months, causing some people to dig holes for shelter, according to one resident and a video shared by activists.
“Inside the neighborhoods, they terrorize, steal, and kill ... people hide in these holes when they are firing and when they are raiding, because there is nowhere else to flee,” the resident told Reuters.
The RSF has also continued raids and arson attacks on villages surrounding Al-Fashir in recent weeks, according to the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.
The Yale Lab found that over half the structures in Zamzam’s main market were destroyed in a manner consistent with arson attacks, executive director Nathaniel Raymond told Reuters.
A video shared by army-aligned Darfur governor Minni Minnawi showed stalls burned to ash and vegetables strewn on the ground.
Arson was also detected on residences along the northern entrance to the camp, said Raymond.
Tens of thousands have been displaced, many seeking refuge in Zamzam and increasing the camp’s population to up to one million people, according to the International Organization for Migration.
ESCAPE ROUTES ‘BLOCKED’
Sudan’s top UN official Clementine Nkweta-Salami said on Thursday she was “shocked by the attacks on Zamzam IDP camp and the blockages of escape routes.”
Across Darfur RSF forces have restricted aid efforts, now also hit by freezes on USAID, according to UN and other aid workers.
MSF, one of few humanitarian groups operating in the area, had to stop a nutrition program for 6,000 malnourished children after the attacks, the aid group’s North Darfur coordinator Marion Ramstein said.
A global hunger monitor determined in August that Zamzam was experiencing famine. In December, it confirmed famine in two other camps in Al-Fashir.
Earlier this month, MSF said it found that the proportion of the camp’s children who were malnourished had risen to 34 percent, a similar level to Tawila, a nearby town to which many have fled from RSF attacks.


Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayor in east with state official, ministry says

Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayor in east with state official, ministry says
Updated 15 February 2025
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Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayor in east with state official, ministry says

Turkiye replaces pro-Kurdish mayor in east with state official, ministry says

ANKARA: Turkiye on Saturday removed another elected pro-Kurdish provincial mayor over convictions on terrorism-related charges and appointed a state official in his place, the interior ministry said.
The local governor replaced Abdullah Zeydan, a member of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party and mayor of the eastern province of Van because of his recent conviction for “assisting an armed terrorist organization,” the ministry said in a statement.
Eight DEM Party-member mayors and two main opposition CHP-member mayors across Turkiye have been removed from their posts over terrorism-related charges since March 2024 local elections. Another CHP-member mayor has been under arrest over tender-rigging charges.
DEM, which has 57 seats in the 600-seat parliament, said the trustee appointment to the Van municipality was “a blow to people’s will,” and it will not “bow to this unlawfulness.”
Opposition politicians have faced a series of legal probes, detentions and arrests in what critics say is a government effort to muzzle dissent and hurt their electoral prospects.
Turkiye’s government dismisses accusations of political interference in the cases and says the judiciary is independent.
On Friday, a legal probe into a top official at Turkiye’s main business group TUSIAD was launched over his criticisms on the recent judicial crackdown on opposition leaders, mayors and journalists.
The European Parliament on Thursday condemned the legal actions against opposition mayors as a “disregard of the rule of law and the government’s violation of the fundamental principles of democracy.”
Saturday’s move also comes amid talks, supported by the government, with the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, to seek an end to a 40-year conflict between the PKK and Turkish state.


Israel receives 3 hostages after Hamas released them to Red Cross

Israel receives 3 hostages after Hamas released them to Red Cross
Updated 15 February 2025
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Israel receives 3 hostages after Hamas released them to Red Cross

Israel receives 3 hostages after Hamas released them to Red Cross
  • The truce that began nearly four weeks ago had been jeopardized in recent days by a tense dispute that threatened to renew the fighting

KHAN YOUNIS: Israeli authorities confirmed they received three Israeli men held hostage in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Hamas handed them over to the Red Cross in exchange for more than 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The three are Iair Horn, 46, Sagui Dekel Chen, 36, and Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29. All are dual nationals.
Horn was abducted along with his brother, Eitan, who remains in captivity.
Among the most prominent of the Palestinian prisoners set to be released is Ahmed Barghouti, 48, a close aide of militant leader and iconic Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti.

Israeli hostages Iair Horn, 46, left, Sagui Dekel Chen, 36, center left, and Alexander Troufanov, 29, right, are escorted by Hamas and islamic Jihad fighters on a stage before being handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP)

As with previous exchanges, a stage was set up and the area was festooned with Palestinian flags and the banners of militant factions. Nearby was the shell of a heavily damaged multistory building.
The Hamas militants then handed them over to the Red Cross.
It's the latest indication that the fragile ceasefire deal, which teetered in recent days, will hold.
Nearly all the 73 remaining hostages are men, including Israeli soldiers, and about half are believed to be dead.
The two sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners so far during the first phase of the truce. The war could resume if no agreement is reached on the more complicated second phase, which calls for the return of all remaining hostages captured in Hamas' attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and an indefinite extension of the truce.
US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to remove more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and settle them elsewhere in the region has cast even more doubt on the future of the ceasefire.
But Hamas said Thursday it would move ahead with the release of more hostages after talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials. The group said the mediators had pledged to “remove all hurdles” to assure Israel would allow more tents, medical supplies and other essentials into Gaza.
 


UN peacekeeping mission deputy commander injured after convoy attacked in Beirut

UN peacekeeping mission deputy commander injured after convoy attacked in Beirut
Updated 13 min 35 sec ago
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UN peacekeeping mission deputy commander injured after convoy attacked in Beirut

UN peacekeeping mission deputy commander injured after convoy attacked in Beirut
  • The outgoing deputy force commander of the UNIFIL was injured on Friday when a convoy taking peacekeepers to Beirut airport was “violently attacked,” UNIFIL said

BEIRUT: The outgoing deputy force commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was injured on Friday after a convoy taking peacekeepers to Beirut airport was "violently attacked", UNIFIL said.
The mission demanded a full and immediate investigation by Lebanese authorities and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice, it said in a statement.
Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack on Saturday, saying that security forces would not tolerate anyone who tries to destabilise the country, according to a statement from his office.
Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar called for an emergency meeting before noon on Saturday to discuss the security situation, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.
"He affirmed the Lebanese government's rejection of this assault that is considered a crime against UNIFIL forces," NNA reported, citing the minister.
He also gave instructions to work on identifying the perpetrators and referring them to the relevant judicial authorities.
The minister told reporters on Saturday that more than 25 people had been detained for investigation over the attack.
The United States condemned the attack that it said wounded U.N. peacekeepers. The State Department statement said the attack was carried out "reportedly by a group of Hezbollah supporters", referring to the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.