Hezbollah is undeterred as Lebanon braces for war with Israel

Hezbollah is undeterred as Lebanon braces for war with Israel

Kareem Fahim, Mohamad El Chamaa

On Thursday, the United States, Qatar and Egypt issued a joint statement urging Hamas and Israel to resume negotiations as Israel braced for retaliation from Hezbollah and its patron Iran for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut’s suburbs and a Hamas leader in Tehran.

“There is no further time to waste,” the statement said. 

As it fights, Hezbollah has been the standard-bearer for the Iran-allied “axis of resistance,” buoyed by its status as Lebanon’s unrivaled military force, its vast arsenal of weapons and its tens of thousands of men under arms. As suffering has spread in Lebanon, Hezbollah has tried to blunt opposition to its military operations by arguing its tactics have limited the spread of violence and kept its battles with Israel from breaking out into a wider conflict.

By largely confining the fighting to Lebanon’s southern border regions, it “created less of a problem than it might have if they had started a major conflict,” said Michael Young, a Beirut-based senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center. There had been a “separation” in Lebanon, between the destruction Israel’s strikes had visited on the south and the reality elsewhere in the country where “life goes on,” he said.

 Ibrahim Mneimneh, an independent member of Lebanon’s parliament, said the toll of war in southern Lebanon was severe enough to question Hezbollah’s strategy. “I don’t believe that they were able to protect Lebanon through what they used to call the ‘equation of deterrence,’” he said, referring to the notion that neither Israel nor Hezbollah wanted to escalate beyond a certain point.

And maintaining the balance Hezbollah had sought was becoming far more difficult. Fears that hostilities could spiral surged in late July, after a strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel and the United States blamed Hezbollah, which denied it was responsible. A few days later, an Israeli missile tore through a residential building in Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, and at least six other people, including two children.

“We did not go to escalation, even when our dear leaders were killed,” Hezbollah secretary general Hasan Nasrallah said in a speech Tuesday, mentioning the dual realities in Lebanon. “For 10 months, there’s been a front, martyrs and funerals, and another part of Lebanon where it’s concerts, and leisure, and lunches and dinners,” he said. But the “aggression” against Shukr, a few miles from downtown Beirut, was different. 

“The Israelis are the ones who chose this escalation with Lebanon,” he said.

In a speech that seemed designed to prepare Lebanon for war, “the tone has changed,” Young said.

“We are in a situation where the rhythm imposed by Hezbollah trying to contain the conflict is no longer possible, it seems — partly because the Israelis appear willing to expand it,” Young said. The speech focused less on Hezbollah’s role in the constellation of Iran-backed armed groups, instead explaining to a broader Lebanese audience why Israel was a threat to the region and Hezbollah’s fight was necessary, he said.

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