Why Israel can’t afford a large-scale escalation with Hezbollah

The spectre of an expanding war between Hezbollah and Israel is becoming difficult to ignore.

The Iran-backed group recently fired dozens of rockets into Israel’s north, claiming attacks on an air control centre in Meron and a series of other settlements. Hezbollah’s attacks were in response to intensifying Israeli airstrikes on Lebanese territory, which have targeted entire towns and villages in the country’s south.

Western diplomats are scrambling to put a floor beneath tensions, while US intelligence experts anticipate a possible Israeli incursion into Lebanon.

Speaking to CNN last week, a senior Biden administration official warned, "We (the United States) are operating (on) the assumption that an Israeli military operation is in the coming months. Not necessarily imminently in the next few weeks but perhaps later this spring. An Israeli military operation is a distinct possibility."

Attacks from Hezbollah and Israel have also reached a tipping point. Israel recently marked its most intense bombardment of Lebanon since October 2023, and is threatening to step up attacks against Hezbollah even if a ceasefire with Hamas materialised in Gaza.

That is a scenario unacceptable to Hezbollah, which insists that a cessation of hostilities in Gaza is central to a halt in attacks. The pace and frequency of Hezbollah’s retaliatory strikes have struck a nerve within Israel. "We (Israel) will continue the fire, and we will do so independently from the south, until we achieve our goals," which include the full withdrawal of Hezbollah from the border, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant recently said.

It is wishful thinking to assume that Israel can completely remove Hezbollah from the border. For months, the group has responded to similar threats by reinforcing its fighter presence in the area. It considers this presence as deterrence against returning Israeli settlers to the north, a stated priority for Israel.

Some 60,000 Israeli settlers have been forced to flee the north due to cross-border escalations, and yet fall within attacking range of Hezbollah’s anti-tank guided missiles and rocket arsenal. All this makes it difficult for Israel to increase its attacks without risking a large-scale escalation in return.

Furthermore, strikes deep into Lebanese territory could mean more pressure on Hezbollah to respond with high-precision attacks, raising the possibility of new weaponry coming into play.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has introduced a surface-to-surface missile and a 50-kilogram warhead, largely supplied by Iran. These are enough for the group to penetrate Israel’s northern borderlands and deny the return of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis.

Similarly, Hezbollah’s attack patterns suggest retaliatory attacks will continue to move beyond the Israel-Lebanon border zone if Israeli warplanes deepen their penetration into Lebanese territory.

Its swift response to Israel’s Baalbek air raid is a case in point: Hezbollah rockets struck coordinates in the central Golan Heights, and were followed up by high-precision attacks against Israeli air control and military sites.

In the midst of these escalations, an Israel-Hamas ceasefire has gained substantial importance. For Hezbollah, the stakes are clear: its ongoing attacks are partly tied to Israel’s Gaza genocide, and it will consider halting attacks if Hamas agreed to a truce in Gaza.

Though Israel's defence minister Gallant said that a Gaza ceasefire would not limit Israel’s planned attacks on Lebanon, his rhetoric ignores fundamental constraints.

As early as January, a secret assessment from the US's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that Israel’s military assets will be stretched thin due to its ongoing war in Gaza, challenging gains against Hezbollah. For Israel, an all-out war could also mean a multi-front fight that depends on US assistance to sustain high-intensity attacks against Hezbollah inside Lebanon.

And yet, Washington’s current priorities on Lebanon and Gaza strike a telling contrast. For one, it is deeply involved in a temporary Gaza truce effort, and considers this a key step towards negotiations to help calm Israel-Hezbollah escalations.

Look no further than US special envoy Amos Hochstein, who helped mediate the 2022 Israel-Lebanon maritime border agreement. Hochstein is soon due in Lebanon to help diffuse cross-border tensions and potentially replicate a similar agreement on the land border front. Whether the United States succeeds or not is beside the point: Washington’s approach to Hezbollah is at odds with Israel's, which insists it is "ready to attack" Hezbollah immediately if provoked.

By vowing to sustain attacks regardless of a ceasefire, Israel appears to tip the odds further against itself. Sustained attacks risk expanding Hamas’s growing toehold in southern Lebanon, the base of its recent attacks against Israel.

For months, Hamas has attracted recruits for a parallel armed force that could aid and advance Hezbollah's cross-border escalations with Israel. During this period, a major enabler was Israel's unrelenting assault on Gaza and its refusal to entertain any temporary pause in aggression.

As a result, Hamas’s armed wing – the Qassam Brigades – stands empowered in the south, targeting key Israeli military sites under Hezbollah's patronage.

All this points to the multitude of challenges facing Israel in Lebanon. It cannot remove Hezbollah fighters from the border without antagonising local allies, widening frictions with Washington, or drawing fierce retaliation from within Lebanon’s borders and beyond.

To ease tensions with Hezbollah, Israel needs to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and support US efforts to resolve Israel’s land border dispute with Lebanon.