Is A War Against Hezbollah Imminent?

Is A War Against Hezbollah Imminent?

ISRAEL KASNETT

The world's attention is focused on Gaza, but if a war breaks out on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, it will be far broader and more destructive than the one Israel is waging against Hamas. Hezbollah has so far refrained from launching a full-scale attack on Israel, though it has continuously fired rockets, mortars and drones at the Jewish state since Oct. 8. 

Each increase in the intensity of Hezbollah's attacks risks crossing the threshold into such a conflict. Iran has reportedly authorized its Lebanese proxy to conduct a large-scale attack against Israel if Hezbollah is "certain" Israel will invade Gaza's Rafah city, Hamas's last remaining stronghold. Given Israel's stated intention to enter Rafah, it thus appears war with Hezbollah is imminent. 

U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein has been shuttling back and forth between the United States, Lebanon and Israel in an effort to prevent the conflict from spreading. Hezbollah has violated U.N. Resolution 1701 since 2006, and then on Oct. 8 additionally violated the 2022 Israel-Lebanon maritime border deal, which Hochstein negotiated. U.S. President Joe Biden's "Don't" warning in October didn't work. 

On Jan. 5, Nasrallah boasted, "We now have an opportunity to return to us Lebanese territories that Israel took over, such as Shebaa Farms, thanks to our standing on the side of Gaza and its people, but any talk about this should only happen after the end of the war on Gaza, and this is our official position."

And in February, Nasrallah said that the terror group's attacks against Israel would continue until Israel ceases its "aggression" in Gaza. 

Israel Defense Forces Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, a JINSA Distinguished Fellow, noted during a recent JINSA webinar that "almost 100,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the north and they cannot come back under the circumstances. If we do not find a solution to this problem, either by diplomatic agreement...or that Hezbollah will change the way it is allocating its forces around the border, we will have to go to a big war that we don't want."

As Israeli Minister Benny Gantz put it, "The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out; If the world and the Lebanese government don't act in order to prevent the firing on Israel's northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the IDF will do it."

More...