With its ally Hamas under attack in Gaza, Iran’s Quds Force commander visited Beirut in February to discuss the risks if Israel next targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon, seven sources said. said.
Sources said Quds leader Esmail Qaani’s meeting with Hezbollah leader Saeed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut was in response to Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel and Israel’s Gaza attack. This is at least the third time since the devastating retaliatory attack on
The conversation turned to the possibility of Israel launching an all-out attack on Lebanon in the north, the sources said. In addition to harming Shiite Muslim groups, such an escalation could force Iran to respond more forcefully than it has since October 7, said three Iranian sources close to power. people spoke.
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Over the past five months, Hezbollah, Israel’s mortal enemy, has shown support for Hamas by firing limited volleys of rockets across Israel’s northern border.
In a previously unreported meeting, Nasrallah reassured Qaani that Iran did not want to be drawn into a war with Israel or the United States and that Hezbollah would fight on its own, sources said.
“This is our fight,” Nasrallah told Qaani, one Iranian source familiar with the talks said.
Skirmishes in Lebanon have been co-ordinated to avoid a major escalation, but tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes on both sides of the border. Israeli airstrikes killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and about 50 civilians in Lebanon, and attacks from Lebanon on Israel killed more than a dozen Israeli soldiers and six civilians.
Israeli counterattacks have increased in intensity and scope in recent days, raising concerns that the violence could spiral out of control even if negotiators achieve a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. There is.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in February that while the door to diplomacy remained open, Israel planned to step up its offensive to decisively remove Hezbollah fighters from its borders in the event of a ceasefire in Gaza. suggested.
Hezbollah militants gather to pay homage to one of the group’s commanders. Ali Aldebous was killed on February 16, 2024 in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiei. (Mahmoud Zayat/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2006, Israel engaged Hezbollah in a brief but intense air and ground battle that devastated Lebanon.
Israeli security officials have previously said Israel does not seek an escalation of hostilities, but added that it is ready to fight on new fronts if necessary. A full-scale war on the northern border would strain Israel’s military resources.
Iran and Hezbollah are mindful of the grave dangers posed by a wider war in Lebanon, two sources who echoed Tehran’s view said the war could escalate and an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could threaten Iran’s nuclear facilities. It said that it contained dangers that could lead to.
The United States lists Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and has sought to curb Iran’s nuclear program for years. Israel has long considered Iran an existential threat. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
For this article, Reuters spoke to four Iranian and two regional sources, as well as a Lebanese source who confirmed the talks. Two U.S. officials and an Israeli official said Iran wants to avoid a counterattack in an Israeli-Hezbollah war. All requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters.
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The U.S. State Department, the Israeli government, Tehran and Hezbollah did not respond to requests for comment.
The talks in Beirut highlight tensions with Iran’s strategy to project strength and support to Gaza across the Middle East through allied armed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, while avoiding major escalation in the region. said analysts.
Mr. Qani and Mr. Nasrallah “want to further insulate Iran from the consequences of supporting numerous proxies across the Middle East.” John Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington said in response to questions about the meeting.
“Perhaps because they believe that the likelihood of military action in Lebanon is increasing, not decreasing.”
Already, Iran’s carefully cultivated influence in the region, in addition to the US-Saudi defense and Israeli-Saudi normalization agreements, has led to an Israeli attack on Hamas and an argument that Iran should not be involved in the Hamas-Israel conflict. Due to warnings from the United States, etc., it is shrinking. Conflict.
in the eyes of israel
Between Qaani and Nasrallah, they control tens of thousands of fighter jets and a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles. They are the mainstay of Tehran’s network of allies and proxy militias, along with Qaani’s elite Quds Force, which operates as the Foreign Legion of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it will stop attacking Israel once the Israeli military offensive in Gaza stops, but US special envoy Amos Hochstein said last week that a ceasefire in Gaza would not automatically lead to calm in southern Lebanon. He said no.
Arab and Western diplomats have reported that Israel has withdrawn its main Hezbollah fighters’ presence along the border, fearing an attack similar to the Hamas invasion that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages. He expressed his strong determination not to allow any more.
Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza have killed more than 31,000 Palestinians and left the coastal enclave in ruins.
“If there is a ceasefire (in Gaza), there are two schools of thought in Israel, and my impression is that the one that recommends continuing the war on the border with Hezbollah is stronger,” said Sima, a former Israeli.・Mr. Shine said. said an intelligence official who currently heads the Iran program at the National Security Institute.
Israeli officials pointed to Tehran’s restrained response to Israeli attacks on Hamas and agreed that Iran was not seeking a full-scale war.
“They seem to feel they are facing a credible military threat, but that threat may need to become more credible,” the official said.
WASHINGTON, via Hochstein France is working on a diplomatic proposal to move Hezbollah fighters from border areas in line with UN Resolution 1701, which helped end the 2006 war, but an agreement remains elusive.
“First line of defense”
The war in Lebanon, which significantly weakens Hezbollah’s standing, relies on the group, founded with Hezbollah’s support in 1982, to act as a bulwark against Israel and to strengthen its own interests in the wider region. It will be a major blow to Iran, two regional sources said.
“Hezbollah is effectively Iran’s first line of defense,” said Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior fellow at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, a Yemeni think tank.
If Israel launches a major military operation against Hezbollah, Iranian power officials said Iran could be forced to escalate its proxy war.
However, Iranian security officials acknowledged that the costs of such an escalation could be prohibitive for Iran’s allied groups. He added that direct involvement by Iran could serve Israel’s interests and justify the continued presence of US troops in the region.
Given Iran’s extensive, decades-long relationship with Hezbollah, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to put distance between them, one U.S. official said.
Since the attack on Israel by Hamas, Iran has celebrated actions supporting its allies in Gaza, including attacks by the Iraqi group on U.S. interests. It also supplies intelligence and weapons to Houthi operations against ships in the Red Sea.
However, three Palestinian intelligence sources said Hamas stopped well short of an unfettered, multi-pronged war against Israel that it expected to be backed by Iran after October 7.
One Iranian official said that prior to his meeting with Nasrallah in Beirut, Qani, along with commanders of militia operations in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, three Hezbollah representatives and a Houthi delegation, traveled to Iran in early February. He chaired the two-day conference.
The official said that the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, was also present. Hamas was not present.
The official said: “In the end, all participants should avoid falling into the trap of Israel’s desire to escalate the war and justify the expansion of the U.S. military presence in the region.” I agreed to that.”
Shortly after, Qaani orchestrated a moratorium on attacks by the Iraqi group. So far, Hezbollah has continued to respond retaliatoryly within what observers call the unwritten rules of engagement with Israel.
Despite decades of proxy conflict since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic has never been at direct war with Israel, and all four Iranian sources said there was no desire to change that situation. Ta.
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Iranian insiders say Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei does not want to see war break out in Iran after domestic discontent with the ruling regime spilled over into mass protests last year.
“Iranians are realists and they fear an escalation of war,” Iryani said.
“They know that if Israel were alone, they would fight, but if the war escalated, the United States would be drawn in.”
