With the region ablaze over the Iran conflict, the Lebanese are focused on surviving their own war within a war.
Their war pits Hezbollah against Israel, with the Lebanese government caught in the crosshairs. The fighting began when the Iranian-backed group fired rockets and drones into Israel on March 2, ostensibly to avenge the assassination of Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the US-Israeli attacks on their benefactor.
“There is no longer a safe place,” declared one journalist on MTV News Lebanon, using a phrase that echoed Palestinian descriptions of Gaza early in that war.
With evacuees from the south and Beirut’s Dahiya area flooding parks, the seaside corniche, and anywhere they could pitch a tent, the IDF deployed the Gaza analogy that same day, dropping leaflets over Beirut announcing: “In light of its success in Gaza, the new reality is coming to Lebanon.”
Israel then began expanding its targeting of Hezbollah leaders and infrastructure, as well as establishing more positions in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah kept up daily barrages on Israel’s northern communities.
By March 15, the Lebanese death toll had reached at least 850 people, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. The Lebanese Red Cross said on March 16 that around 900,000 people had been displaced by the fighting and evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, the Hezbollah fire, though less devastating, was spreading fear and disruption, including a hit Monday that set a house in Nahariya on fire, lightly wounding 15 people, according to Magen David Adom.
The IDF, meanwhile, said its troops were conducting “limited and targeted” ground operations that appeared ready to morph into a major offensive to push back Hezbollah and significantly reduce its ability to strike across the border.
It’s classic asymmetrical warfare, but the Middle East’s most powerful army will need a decisive win to claim victory, while for Hezbollah, mere survival will be enough.
Israel also faces tough challenges of how deep to penetrate in Lebanese territory, how long to stay, how widely to target, and when and whether to negotiate with the Lebanese government, which shares its animus towards Hezbollah but has thus far been reluctant to disarm it or clash with it.
It would be a pyrrhic victory if Israel devastates Hezbollah while undermining its potential peace partners in Lebanon’s cabinet by rebuffing them and razing Lebanon.
Miri Eisin, a former spokeswoman for prime minister Ehud Olmert and a retired IDF colonel, who served as deputy head of the combat intelligence corps, told The Jerusalem Report that she hopes Israel carefully weighs the impact of its actions on the Lebanese government.
“I think we’ll continue acting against Hezbollah, and we’ll threaten Lebanon. I want to hope the threat is a fading face because this government may not like us, but it hates Hezbollah and Iran more, and that’s a win.”
Eisin stressed the importance of concluding the operation swiftly. “Right now, the people of Lebanon still blame Hezbollah, but there is going to be a tipping point when we accidentally kill a lot of civilians,” she said, referencing artillery shelling during a 1996 operation in southern Lebanon that caused 106 fatalities among civilians sheltering at a UN compound. A UN commission said it was a deliberate strike, while Israel disputed that finding.
“When that happens, we lose all the capability to say we’re acting against Hezbollah and the Lebanese government will lose its credibility,” Eisin said.
For now, that does not seem to be an Israeli concern. During the first week of fighting, the Khardali bridge across the Litani River in the south was destroyed by the IAF. The act not only prevented Hezbollah from using the crossing but also served as a warning to the Lebanese government.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said following the strike that there would be ”escalating costs in harm to infrastructure and loss of territory,” unless the Lebanese army fulfills commitments to disarm Hezbollah.
Along with the air strikes and rocket fire, a battle over narrative has already begun, with Hezbollah trying to convince its support base that it was right to open a new round with Israel and that their suffering is for a worthy cause. Even though it started the war, Hezbollah seeks to cast it as a defensive battle.
Traditionally, Hezbollah had drawn its legitimacy by asserting that its arms protected Lebanon from Israel. But after its defeat by Israel in the war that followed Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, the group emerged weakened and on the defensive. Its charismatic leader and the voice of the resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, had been assassinated.
More voices in Lebanon moved to the fore, condemning Hezbollah as an Iranian implant that threatened Lebanon’s interests. A new cabinet under Prime Minister Nawaf Salam was launched, which was verbally committed to the disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups.
But given that Hezbollah’s militia is clearly stronger, better trained, and more motivated than the Lebanese army, this commitment has not materialized on the ground despite the government saying – without basis– that the militia had been disarmed in the area south of the Litani River.
Still, when it attacked Israel in early March, Hezbollah found itself isolated as never before, with even fellow Shi’ite leader Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament, criticizing its decision.
Much of the media also opened fire on Hezbollah. Anthony Samrani, co-editor-in-chief of Beirut’s L’Orient Today, flayed the terrorist group in a commentary on March 2.
“All we know is that the split between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon is now final… Hezbollah has decided to drag Lebanon into a new war, already forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes.”
“This time, there must be no excuses for it, whatever the Israeli response may be. This time Lebanese authorities need to treat the militia for what it is: a growth of the Islamic Republic that must be done away with, before it ends up wiping out what is left of Lebanon.”
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