Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has intensified over the weekend despite diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions between the two and prevent an expected Hezbollah and Iranian attack against Israel.
An Israeli attack on Saturday was one of the bloodiest for civilians since fighting began in October, killing 10 Syrian workers and their family members in what Israel said was a strike on a Hezbollah weapons depot in Nabatieh, south Lebanon. In response, Hezbollah launched a 55-missile barrage at the town of Ayelet HaShahar, in north Israel.
Three Unifil peacekeepers were also lightly injured in an explosion on Sunday while on patrol in the Lebanese border town of Yarin. A source within Unifil said they believed the soldiers were injured by a nearby Israeli airstrike, but that they were still investigating the incident.
The threat of a full-scale war looms larger than ever after 10 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, sparked by the latter launching rockets at Israel “in solidarity” with Hamas’s 7 October attack.
Hezbollah and Iran have vowed revenge against Israel for the assassination of the Hezbollah military chief of staff Fuad Shukr in Beirut and the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing, but has a history of carrying out targeted assassinations across the region.
Hezbollah released a video on Friday showcasing missile-laden trucks driving through an allegedly city-sized tunnel network, the first time the group had revealed its widely reputed tunnel network on camera.
A source in Hezbollah said: “The enemy [Israel] wants a war and is always attempting to pressure us, so we are ready for all possibilities.” They added that that the group’s rocket capabilities were “very large” and what was displayed in Friday’s video was just “a drop in the ocean of what Hezbollah possesses”.
The US and other western powers have been engaged in furious diplomacy since the dual assassinations in Beirut and Tehran. The US envoy Amos Hochstein visited both Tel Aviv and Beirut this week, while an emergency round of talks to forge a ceasefire in Gaza was held in Doha last week.
But western diplomats in Beirut say they have been left in the dark about Hezbollah’s promised retaliation against Israel and that the group has given no clue “where or when” the attack would take place.
In public, the media-savvy group has also been unusually silent. The Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, has said that the anticipation of an attack is “part of the punishment” against Israel. It fits within the group’s historical doctrine of “strategic ambiguity”, revealing little about its military capabilities and intentions to maintain deterrence.
Neither the UK nor the US can speak directly with Hezbollah officials, but instead must pass messages through intermediaries in the Lebanese government or through the Amal political party, Hezbollah’s ally. The diplomatic game of telephones has further complicated western efforts to judge the Lebanese group’s thinking.
The credibility of Hochstein, the diplomat leading efforts to stop fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, has also taken a hit in Lebanon. Hezbollah-affiliated media accused him of “deceiving” Lebanese officials by providing false assurances in the run-up to the assassination of Shukr in Beirut.
“Hezbollah does not view Hochstein as a trustworthy negotiator,” Kassem Kassir, an analyst close to Hezbollah, said, adding that despite this, “there is no currently no alternative” to the US diplomat.
The Doha talks were launched in large part to head off an attack by Hezbollah and Iran, both of whom have said that fighting was designed to pressure Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza.
While talks seemed to have postponed a retaliation against Israel, Hezbollah has said an attack would still come, regardless of the prospects of a ceasefire.
The deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, insisted on Thursday that a response was “completely separate” from fighting in Gaza and would be carried out – though the group would cease its other operations against Israel in the event of a ceasefire.
The UK and French foreign ministers, David Lammy and Stéphane Séjourné, warned in the Observer on Sunday that the region was witnessing a “perilous moment”.
“One miscalculation, and the situation risks spiralling into an even deeper and more intractable conflict,” they wrote.
