Is Hezbollah ready to declare war on Israel?

In Israel currently, people are waiting for a possible escalation in the north. The United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Russia and the Netherlands have called on their citizens in Lebanon to leave the country. Western embassies in Lebanon are exploring the coastal area to locate possible points from where an evacuation by sea could be carried out. The German foreign ministry, in a message on its website, drily notes: “A further escalation could also lead to a complete suspension of air traffic from Rafiq Hariri Airport. Leaving Lebanon by air would then no longer be possible.”

The USS Wasp amphibious assault ship has arrived via the Strait of Gibraltar to the eastern Mediterranean. It has the capacity to carry out civilian evacuations. The reason for its presence, though, according to a US official quoted in Newsweek, is “deterrence.” It is meant to make Hezbollah and its Iranian masters think carefully before escalating their current pattern of attacks.  It’s not clear what role it would play, if any, however, were hostilities to tip over into all-out war.

Here in Israel, people are quietly making their own arrangements. I spoke this week to a colleague in the northern coastal city of Haifa, who writes for a large European newspaper. He has a room I can stay in if war starts. I live in Jerusalem.  The unspoken assumption is that if war comes, the highways northwards might become impassable. We’ll both be covering the events from as close as we can get. We discuss electricity generators and where one might find them.

The prospect of war between Israel and the Hezbollah is now tangible and real. For now, though, it is locked in a kind of holding pattern. Since October 8, Hezbollah has been conducting daily launches of rockets, missiles and anti-tank ordnance against communities on Israel’s northern border. Israel is responding, destroying Hezbollah targets and infrastructure. For the most part, both sides appear to be seeking to contain the confrontation to the relatively narrow area of territory bisected by the border.

The prospect of war between Israel and the Hezbollah is now tangible and real

At present, there is a slight lull in intensity following the large Hezbollah barrage that followed Israel’s killing of Taleb Abdullah, a senior Hezbollah commander in the south, on June 12. Nothing, of course, is resolved, and the war of words is broadening and intensifying. On Friday, the Iranian UN Mission wrote on X that should Israel embark on a “full scale military aggression” against Hezbollah, then an “obliterating war will ensue.” The Iranian statement continued that “all options, including the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table.”

Iran’s “Mehwar al-Muqawama” (Resistance Axis) is of course already engaged across the region in support of its component militia, Hamas, in Gaza. The Ansar Allah (Houthis) of Yemen are continuing their campaign against shipping on the Gulf of Aden/Red Sea waterway. The latest attacks came against four vessels on Friday. The volume of shipping along this vital trade route has been reduced by 90 percent since the attacks began in November. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a convenient title used by Iraq’s Iran supported Shia militias, with Ktaeb Hezbollah most significant among them, claimed responsibility for the launching of a UAV on the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Wednesday. 

But while Iran has partially mobilized its array of militias across the region against Israeli and western targets, it is apparent that Tehran does not seek at this stage an all out confrontation with its enemies. Hezbollah’s leaders describe the campaign it has opened as constituting a “support front” for the main engagement, that of Hamas against Israel in Gaza. The Iraqi Shia militias have for now largely ceased their attacks on US targets in Iraq and Syria. Their periodic targeting of Israel remains currently largely symbolic in nature. 

Iran wishes to avoid bringing matters to a head with Israel and the US because its strategy of slow takeover of the region has proceeded very well over the last twenty years, alongside its steady march towards a nuclear capacity. Tehran cannot be seen to have “betrayed” its junior Hamas client in Gaza. On the other hand, Iran’s leaders — canny chess players — see no logic in sacrificing their knights and castles for the sake of keeping a pawn on the board.

Israel and the US don’t want all-out war in the region, of course — but herein lies the dilemma. At present, the Iranians have escalated across the region to a level of their choosing. They are not willing to de-escalate, for as long as the war in Gaza continues. Their flexing of muscles has had very serious consequences. Israel’s northern border has become a closed security zone, with 60,000 Israelis refugees in their own country. The Red Sea has become almost impassable for civilian ships. The current level of Israeli and western response is clearly nowhere near sufficient to oblige the Iranians to draw down.

At present, therefore, the dilemma facing both Israeli and US leadership is whether Tehran should be permitted to engage in a campaign of region wide aggression, for as long as it wishes, to a level of intensity that it alone defines — on condition that this campaign remains somewhere short of an all-out war. The Israeli decision in this regard will determine whether the current period ends in a rapid, violent escalation, or in a continuation of the holding pattern and a subsequent gradual reducing of tensions. The latter course, in terms of lost deterrence and the ceding of initiative, won’t be cost free. In the meantime, it’s high summer. The bars and cafes in central Israel are open. The public parks are full of young families with children. The waiting continues.   

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.