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Pro-Iranian militias in Lebanon are fighting Israel at a rapidly escalating pace that could spell disaster for both sides.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on April 26, Israel and Hezbollah are trapped in a cycle of increasing violence that risks further escalation following unprecedented direct fighting between Israel and Iran.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and pro-Iranian group, has been engaged in a skirmish with Israel since Tel Aviv began its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas' October 7 attack last year, with the Lebanese militia launching rockets and drones into Israel while the Israeli army counterattacked with airstrikes and artillery into Lebanon.
The Israeli military and Hezbollah have escalated their clashes in recent days, raising concerns that one side or the other could miscalculate and trigger a more tense confrontation. Such a scenario could result in widespread casualties and destruction in both Lebanon and neighboring Israel.
Most recently, according to a statement on April 26, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked military buildings where Hezbollah members were stationed in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah attacked the IDF in the Mount Dov area in northern Israel with anti-tank missiles. The IDF then responded with artillery fire and the Israeli Air Force attacked several targets in southern Lebanon.
Avoiding a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah has been a top priority for Western governments, including the United States, since the Gaza conflict began, with the Biden administration sending a senior White House official on multiple trips to the region in an effort to ease tensions, the WSJ noted. Western efforts to de-link the two fronts have been fruitless, with Hezbollah only briefly holding a ceasefire during a week-long ceasefire in Gaza last November.
Hezbollah also launched its deepest attack on Israel on April 23, saying it targeted the headquarters of its infantry brigade in the coastal city of Acre, more than 30 kilometers from the border with Lebanon. The Israeli military said its air defenses intercepted two aerial targets along the country’s northern coast. The next day, the Israeli military said its warplanes attacked 40 Hezbollah targets in the southern Lebanese town of Ayta ash-Shab.
A week earlier, Hezbollah targeted an Israeli site in Arab al Aramshe, a village in northern Israel, using guided missiles and drones in what the militant group said was a coordinated attack in retaliation for the Israeli killing of two of its members. The Israeli military confirmed that several missiles and drones were fired from Lebanon toward an army barracks, wounding more than a dozen soldiers, one of whom later died. The IDF said it responded with airstrikes on multiple Hezbollah targets.
“This is the most dangerous moment for the Hezbollah-Israel front since October 7 last year,” said Rym Momtaz, a security analyst at the Paris-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “There are a lot of rocket attacks, each side is testing the other’s limits through such attacks.”
A significant escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could be disastrous for both sides. In the last war between the two sides in 2006, Israel bombed the civilian airport in Beirut and Hezbollah fired rockets deep into Israeli territory. More than 1,100 people were killed in Lebanon. About 120 Israeli soldiers and more than 40 civilians were killed in the war.
Both sides have beefed up their militaries in the nearly two decades since, with Israel buying new air defense systems and advanced fighter jets from the US and Hezbollah buying new missiles and other weapons from Iran. Hezbollah also has thousands of combat-ready soldiers with experience fighting in the Syrian civil war and a tunnel system in southern Lebanon that is said to be the equivalent of Hamas’ underground network in Gaza.
Hezbollah had an estimated 150,000 artillery and ballistic missiles in 2015, according to Israeli estimates, although security analysts say the number has increased since then. Analysts say Hezbollah conceals the size of its arsenal in order to maintain a strategic advantage in any confrontation with Israel.
The threat of widespread destruction made both sides concerned about ensuring the conflict did not spiral out of control. However, it also made both sides believe that they could escalate the conflict without triggering an all-out war.
“While both sides understand that they want to avoid war, they are actually allowing themselves to escalate over time,” said Brigadier General Assaf Orion, a senior researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies. “So as long as there is fighting in Gaza, Hezbollah will continue its attacks, which increases the risk of miscalculation.”
Along with the war in Gaza, the border conflict between Lebanon and Israel has destabilized both countries for months. Since October 7, Israeli strikes have killed at least 276 Hezbollah fighters, according to the group — a number comparable to the number killed in the 2006 war. Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli civilians have been displaced.
