In recent days, Israel has launched a series of attacks in an attempt to definitively decapitate Hezbollah’s military wing. It is the largest offensive recorded since the 2006 war and has caused, in a single day, more than half a thousand deaths, a figure not seen since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990. Since the missile launch, thousands of Lebanese civilians have been forced to abandon their homes in the south of the country and in the Bekaa region, two regions with a Shiite majority.
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a war of attrition with no clear winner. However, in recent weeks, the balance of power has shifted dramatically following a series of Israeli precision strikes against senior leaders of the Shiite militia.
Fouad Shukr, the organization’s number two, was assassinated on July 30, and on September 20, it was the turn of Ibrahim Aqil, the head of operations, to meet with a dozen commanders of the elite Redwan unit. A few days earlier, the synchronized explosion of thousands of mobile devices had killed 37 people and caused more than 3,000 injuries to varying degrees. As a result of these actions, Hezbollah’s chain of command was seriously damaged and its military capabilities severely limited.
Everything seems to indicate that the Israeli government considers that the time has come to turn the page on the action-reaction cycle and launch a large-scale operation aimed at destroying Hezbollah. Once the Gaza Strip has been devastated, Israel considers that it has a free hand to open a new front in Lebanon. The passivity of the international community in the face of the destruction of Gaza and the genocide of its population has been interpreted by the Netanyahu government as a blank check. Although this decision is not without risk, there is a broad consensus within the Israeli political scene on the need to take advantage of Hezbollah’s obvious weakness to deal a definitive blow.
Looking ahead to the coming weeks, we cannot rule out a “gasification” of Lebanon, or at least of some of its territories, particularly those where Hezbollah militias are more present, such as the southern provinces, the Bekaa Valley or the suburb of Dahiye in Beirut.
The attacks can be expected to be neither surgical nor limited, and the same massacres that took place in Gaza last year will be repeated. It is worth recalling that it was during the 2006 war that Israel first put into practice the Dahiye doctrine, promoted by its chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who, in his own words, intended to “apply disproportionate force and cause great damage and destruction”: There is no need to distinguish between civilian villages and military bases.
In recent months, Israel’s top political and military leadership has resorted to increasingly ominous war rhetoric. Education Minister Yoav Kisch recently stressed that “there is no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon” and that “Lebanon will be annihilated: it will no longer exist as we know it.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, has repeatedly threatened to return it “to the Stone Age,” declaring, “What we did in Gaza, we can do in Beirut.”
Some analysts believe that the rhetoric is primarily aimed at pressuring Hezbollah to stop its attacks, which would allow the return of the 80,000 Israelis forced from their homes by the rocket attacks. Others believe that this escalation is a prelude to a future de-escalation.
In any case, the Israeli army seems to be following the same script that it used to try to justify the scorched earth strategy applied in Gaza. A senior military official pointed out that “Hezbollah uses its villages, including mosques, hospitals, clinics or schools, as places to launch rockets and missiles against Israeli civilians,” so these places are likely to be considered legitimate targets by the authorities. the Israeli army.
If these threats come true, it will not be the first time that Israel invades Lebanon: it did so in 1982 in an attempt to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization and establish a Christian puppet government that would agree to sign a peace treaty. Not only did it fail to achieve its goals, it also paved the way for the emergence of the Islamic resistance, which has since gained considerable political weight and is now in a hegemonic position.
The military occupation of southern Lebanon lasted for nearly two decades, with the last Israeli troops withdrawing in 2000, leaving a trail of dead. In 2006, Israel launched a new offensive against Hezbollah that left more than 1,100 casualties and destroyed a significant portion of civilian infrastructure, but failed to destroy Hezbollah, which continues to enjoy significant support within Lebanese society.
The Israeli government could make a huge miscalculation by underestimating Hezbollah’s capabilities and interpreting that the Shiite militia has become a giant with feet of clay that, sooner or later, will end up collapsing under the maximum pressure to which it is subjected.
Hezbollah is much more than an armed militia and, over its four decades of existence, it has succeeded in building a state within a state. Its presence in parliament is essential to ensuring Lebanon’s governability and its charitable networks provide essential services to a large part of the Shiite community, one of the weakest links in Lebanon’s heterogeneous society.
After suffering a series of unprecedented blows, everything seems to indicate that Hezbollah has no intention of escalating tensions or entering into an all-out war with Israel, which could also trigger the destruction of Lebanon. Today, its top priority is to try to recover from the losses suffered and ensure its own survival in a very unfavorable regional context.
Hezbollah is fully aware of the limited room for maneuver of its allies in the Axis of Resistance, since Iran does not seem interested in a head-on confrontation with its traditional enemies and the Shiite militias in Yemen, Iraq or Syria barely have the means to face it, an emboldened Israel which, on the other hand, enjoys the unwavering support of the United States.
Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio is professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the Complutense University of Madrid and co-author of “Gaza. Chronicle of a Nakba Foretold” (Catarata, 2024).
