Deadly attacks on pagers and walkie talkies in Lebanon this week, followed by attacks on military leaders, have raised fears that a larger Israeli offensive against Hezbollah is imminent and that a wider war is inevitable.
Low-tech explosive devices killed at least 37 people and injured thousands in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, while attacks on Friday killed top Hezbollah commanders and reignited the conflict.
Israel has also increasingly signaled it is ready for a larger battle with Hezbollah as its operation against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip winds down.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week that the 11-month battle with Iran-backed Hezbollah had entered a “new phase,” while the Israeli Security Cabinet formally set a war goal of returning some 60,000 displaced people to the northern border with Lebanon.
The rapid attacks of recent days all indicate that Israel is shifting the focus of the war towards Hezbollah, but it is unclear whether a more dramatic escalation such as a ground invasion will occur.
Jonathan Speyer, research director at the Middle East Forum, said the pager and radio attacks were likely carried out because Hezbollah had become aware of the plans and were not a “prelude to an imminent ground operation.”
“The ideal time to do this would have been 24 hours after a major ground invasion, at which point Hezbollah would have been in serious disarray,” Speyer said of the pager and radio attacks. “And my sense is that's not what's happening now. We may well be escalating toward war, but I don't think we're necessarily heading toward war.” [an] “A major Israeli ground invasion is imminent.”
Israel has so far focused most of its resources on the Gaza Strip, where it has been battling Hamas for almost a year.
But Hezbollah has been shelling across the border for almost as long, posing a significant security threat that is becoming increasingly difficult to resolve diplomatically.
The war in Gaza is not over yet, but Hamas is weaker and no longer the threat it once was, freeing up Israel's resources. This week Israel moved its elite paratrooper and combat unit, the 98th Division, to the north. According to the Associated PressThe unit played a key role in the Gaza operation.
Gallant said Friday that troops would “continue to pursue the enemy to protect our people.”
“This new set of actions will continue until our goal of northerners being able to safely return to their homes is achieved,” he said. Posted on social platform X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the comments in his own post, writing, “Our goal is clear and our actions speak for themselves.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that the pager and walkie-talkie explosions were a “blow” to his forces and tantamount to a declaration of war, and in a high-profile speech on Thursday challenged Israel to invade Lebanon.
“Nothing — neither military escalation, nor murder, nor assassinations, nor all-out war — can bring our people back to our borders,” he said in his speech.
If a ground invasion is not imminent, it is unclear why Israel, which has not publicly acknowledged its role in the attacks on the pagers and walkie-talkies, detonated explosives and carried out major airstrikes this week, significantly escalating the conflict.
Yousef Munayyer, director of the Palestine-Israel Program and senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., said Israel may be “increasing pressure through various tactics aimed at Hezbollah to better its negotiating position” and “trying to force Hezbollah to back down.”
“I don't think either side wants an all-out war because of the costs. [but] “Israelis in particular seem to be becoming more and more open to that possibility, which is why they are taking this step,” he said.
“An increasingly dangerous game of chicken is being played out here, with Israel experimenting to see if it can push Hezbollah back without launching a ground invasion,” Munayyer added. “But it's hard to see that happening, and it's hard to see a ground invasion leading to anything other than a final stalemate.” [and] There were heavy casualties on both sides.”
Despite the evolution of the conflict, the potential costs of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon remain the same: Israel would have to commit significant numbers of troops and the fighting would likely be worse than its 2006 war with Hezbollah, in which both sides suffered heavy losses and few victories.
Hezbollah has expanded its influence since 2006 and now possesses around 150,000 rockets that it uses to threaten Israel.
Seth Krumrich, a retired Army colonel who served as chief of staff at U.S. Central Command's Special Operations Command and has advised the Lebanese army in the past, said Israel may be in a better position to oppose Hezbollah because the objective of the latest attack is narrower than in 2006, with the goal this time being to establish a safe zone to which residents can return.
“The achievable goals are set. The issue is protecting them from Hezbollah, and what Hezbollah decides will determine Israel's response,” he said.
But Krumrich, now vice president of the international security firm Global Guardian, doubts that an invasion of Lebanon would resolve tensions in the Middle East, including in Gaza.
He argued that the real strategic win for Israel would be to reach a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, something made more difficult this week by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's statement that a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine is necessary.
“I don't think people are recognizing the victory here and working towards it,” he said of the Saudi normalization deal. “They're going to send the Israelis home. [by fighting Hezbollah] But that just makes them more isolated.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday that war between Israel and Hezbollah “is not inevitable” and that “we will continue to do everything we can to prevent it.”
“Our intensive diplomatic efforts continue,” Kirby said. “We believe, and continue to believe, that a diplomatic solution is the best way forward.”
According to a Pentagon statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called Gallant on Friday and “strongly reemphasized the importance of reaching a diplomatic solution that allows residents on both sides of the border to safely return to their homes.”
Amos Hofstein, the U.S. envoy negotiating the Hezbollah-Israel agreement, met with Israeli officials this week but the talks were marred by pager and radio attacks.
Diplomacy appears to be faltering as the Gaza deal falls apart, Israel and Hamas cannot agree on key details, and Hezbollah will not stop its attacks unless there is peace in Gaza.
Israel also balks at a Hochstein-promoted U.S. plan to enforce a U.N. resolution calling for only the Lebanese army, not Hezbollah, to be stationed south of the Litani River.
Avraham Levine, media director and geopolitics speaker at the Israel-based think tank ALMA Center for Research and Education, said the resolution has never been implemented in practice, making Israelis hesitant to trust in any diplomatic solution.
“Nothing has changed, absolutely nothing,” he said after the resolution was put into place. “So why do we believe the same solution will work this time around?”
But Munayyer of the Arab Center said that may still be preferable to being drawn into a long-term conflict that could benefit Iran-backed groups.
“There's reason to doubt that a diplomatic agreement would provide a solution, and it would be a short-term solution at best,” he said, but “if the choice is between diplomatic failure and military failure, diplomatic failure is much less costly.”
