Across the Middle East, Dahiya, in south Beirut, is seen as not just a suburb. It is a synonym for Hezbollah. This is not only the movement’s stronghold, it is the headquarters of what is in Lebanon a state within a state. That an Israeli drone strike could kill the deputy head of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, and several aides at a meeting in the heart of Dahiya has shocked the region and left it asking one question. Is war about to break out between Hezbollah, Iran’s highly-armed proxy, and Israel?
The truth is that a border war between Israel and Lebanon has already been rumbling since October 8, when Hezbollah, the day after Hamas’s massacre, began firing rockets at Israeli positions. Almost as many Hezbollah fighters have died as Israeli soldiers have been lost in the Gaza ground offensive. And in recent days, the strength of the volley has been picking up — with Israel even knocking out a Hezbollah commander in the field. Given that a border war could ignite a regional war, potentially dragging in both Iran and the United States, why are both sides willing to risk all out and massive destruction?
This is how Israel sees it. Fearing that Hezbollah might conduct its own Hamas-style raid into its border communities in Galilee, Israel evacuated its citizens. Now, almost three months in, these tens of thousands do not feel safe to return unless Hezbollah withdraws its forces — or at the very least its elite Radwan commandos — north of the Litani river, in accordance with the UN resolution that ended the 2006 war between the two.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, there was a strong push in the Israeli cabinet to strike first against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The group had pinned down an enormous army of reservists in the north of the country, hindering the campaign on Hamas in the south, and struck fear into the hearts of millions of Israelis. With good reason.
Hezbollah is a ferocious fighting force equipped with over 150,000 rockets and battle hardened in the Syrian killing fields
The movement is a ferocious fighting force equipped with more than 150,000 rockets and battle hardened in the Syrian killing fields. Those pushing for a first strike wanted to remove Israel’s most ferocious future threat and that of a multi-front war.
The conversation was serious enough for the US to send two aircraft carrier groups to the region in order to dissuade Israel from acting and to send a message to Hezbollah and Iran not to use Israel’s moment of weakness to attack it. In October, Israel accepted. But now its calculations have changed.
Hamas’s ability to fire rockets into Israel has dramatically diminished, freeing up its missile defence shield, and the Israeli air force no longer has as many targets in Gaza. There are many in the Israeli security cabinet now calling to strike Hezbollah, using a once in history occasion as the country’s northern population is already evacuated.
This is why Israel has decided to dial up the temperature. US officials believe that Israel has a good case to demand Hezbollah withdraw its forces from the border region as the UN requires. No country, they believe, can accept an entire region being made up of internal refugees indefinitely. But they do not want a full-scale war which they believe would bring devastating bombardment to Lebanon and Israel’s major cities alike. This is why the US and France, the former colonial power, are trying diplomatic measures to make Hezbollah’s commandos at least withdraw in exchange for Israel agreeing to demark the entire border.
Israel, sensing its pressure is working, has indicated that it would be open to such measures but if they do not work it will take action. But how does Hezbollah see it? The movement’s offices in Dahiya are filled with portraits of Iran’s ayatollahs. This is not just mutual Shia affinity.
As one Arab official recently put it to me: “Hezbollah is the Iranian Revolutionary Guards”. Western and Arab officials believe that Iran wants to “store” Hezbollah as its deterrence against any Israeli or US strike against its nuclear programme. And this is why war will be avoided. Meanwhile, the Lebanese state and people, who would be collateral, overwhelmingly want to avoid war.
But every strike in Dahiya and every lost commander costs Hezbollah credibility. As in all border wars there may be a tipping point where it feels it cannot lose face — or the escalating tit-for-tat spirals out of control. Not to mention its growing fear that unless it acts first Israel may do so, offering it a crippling military advantage. Ultimately, this is a question of Western power. Do Washington and Paris have the power to stop a war before it is too late? The average Levantine — be they Israeli, Lebanese, or Palestinian — certainly hopes so.
