Are Israel and Lebanon on the verge of another all-out war?

Are Israel and Lebanon on the verge of another all-out war?

RT

After months of tensions along the Blue Line separating Lebanon and Israel, tents set up by Lebanese Hezbollah – in response to an Israeli border war project on occupied territory – may escalate into the largest conflict between both sides since the 34-day war of 2006.

Lebanon and Israel are technically in a constant state of war, frozen since August 2006. Despite both sides having largely held their fire since the mid-2000s, a series of provocations has threatened to change the status quo in dramatic fashion. In 2018, Lebanon’s Higher Defence Council announced that it had given orders to prevent Israel from constructing a multi-million dollar border wall on Lebanese territory, to which Tel Aviv* responded that the fence/wall was intended to be built on Israeli territory.

In January 2019, after the Israeli military claimed it had discovered tunnel systems built beneath the border area with Lebanon, Beirut filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to complain that the Israeli border wall was being built on Lebanese territory – violating UN resolution 1701. Tel Aviv and Beirut have never officially delineated a mutually agreed upon international land border. Instead, following the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations created the Blue Line to demarcate Lebanese and Israeli territory. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), created in the 1970s, was then sent in to keep the peace between both sides, yet is criticized for its frequent inaction and ineffectiveness.

The 2006 Lebanon-Israel war resulted in around 1,200 dead Lebanese and hundreds of Israelis, at a time when Hezbollah – which was the main Lebanese force combating Israel – was relatively primitive compared to what it is today. 

Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, relatively basic back in 2006, today has been updated to include precision missiles that can bring down high-rise buildings in Tel Aviv, just as Israeli missiles bring down high-rise buildings in Beirut. The Lebanese armed group boasts a standing army of 100,000 men, not including special forces and allied militias. This is relevant because in 2006, the Israeli military was forced to retreat from southern Lebanon and only encountered a force roughly estimated to have been around 14,000 men strong.

Any full-scale war between Lebanon and Israel has the potential to displace millions, cause tens of billions in damage to infrastructure and even worse – the deaths of thousands of civilians. In 1982, when the Israeli military launched its invasion of Lebanon, it is said to have killed up to 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. All of this could have been avoided if American policy makers in Washington were to have preempted this issue and held their ally accountable discreetly.

The likelihood of a conflict between the two Middle Eastern nations is currently high, however, it is more likely that a limited round of fighting will be initiated first. Israel clearly has no interest in entering a full-scale war with Lebanon, yet cannot help itself when it comes to expansionist plans at the border. Due to the hesitancy of the Israeli military and political establishment to attack Lebanon, it may choose instead to launch a targeted mission against Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) inside the country, to which Hezbollah would likely respond.

In April, following an Israeli assault on worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a barrage of rockets were fired from Southern Lebanon. Different Israeli politicians blamed the rocket fire on either Hamas or the PIJ movement, but what was important was the message of the attack. The barrage of rockets indicated that the northern front, which had been closed for over a decade, had now opened once more; not only this, but actions committed against Palestinians can now result in a potential response from Lebanese territory. The Israeli border wall plans could have been curbed early on, if only the US government would have involved itself to urge Israel to refrain from occupying Lebanese territory. This failure in judgment and the willingness to pressure Israel may now trigger a devastating and unnecessary conflict.