Early Sunday morning, there was one of the most significant exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of the offensive in Gaza. Israel “preemptively” bombed southern Lebanon with more than a hundred warplanes to thwart an “imminent attack” by the Shiite group Hezbollah, targeting thousands of shuttles headed toward the north and center of its territory, as the army announced. For their part, Lebanese militiamen fired more than 300 projectiles and drones at Israel, carrying out the promised revenge for the assassination of Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fouad Shukr, on July 30 in Beirut during an Israeli attack.
The spectacular exchange of fire left only three dead on the Lebanese side and one on the Israeli side, and brought the latest attack-counterattack cycle to a contained end. Beyond the threats exchanged, the toll of casualties and material damage indicates that neither Tel Aviv nor Hezbollah wants to hit their neighbor hard and trigger a high-intensity war, something the international community has been trying by all means to avoid for weeks.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, warned on the social network X that “the situation in the Middle East has reached a critical level of danger for the region and beyond”. The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) also called on the parties to avoid a further escalation of violence, after more than ten months of mutual attacks between Israel and Hezbollah that have caused the displacement of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border and hundreds of deaths – more than 500 on the Lebanese side, including around 400 Hezbollah fighters, and around 50 on the Israeli side, including 23 soldiers.
The risk remains
The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border is extremely calm on Monday. Israeli authorities have extended aid to northern residents displaced by Hezbollah attacks and are maintaining a military state of emergency, approved by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday, which allows the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to issue instructions to the population in the event of further attacks. Sirens warning of possible shelling sounded repeatedly in northern Israel on Monday, and the army reported shelling in various parts of southern Lebanon. Gallant said on Sunday that it was “important to avoid a regional escalation.”
For his part, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said the Shiite movement would analyze the outcome of its attack on Israel and that “if it is satisfactory and the intended objective has been achieved,” it would consider the revenge operation over. While tensions remain high since the attack that killed Shoukr in the Lebanese capital, Nasrallah wanted to send a message of calm to the country: “Now you can breathe and relax.”
However, Iran’s response to the July 31 assassination of the political leader of the Palestinian Hamas group, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion in Tehran attributed to Israel, is still lacking. An even larger and more dangerous conflict in the Middle East would involve Iran and, therefore, the United States, which has promised to defend its Israeli ally and protégé.
Analysts point out that the risk of a war like the one between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 continues to exist because the daily exchanges of fire keep tensions high and the door open to any “miscalculation” that would trigger a greater confrontation – although for now the containment equation has avoided this scenario.
Ofer Shelah, an expert at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), emphasizes that Sunday’s “successful operation” by the IDF does not change the overall situation, which is “on the brink of a regional war.” The director of the National Security Policy Research Program states on the INSS website that “Hezbollah will continue to attack Israel as long as the war in Gaza continues.”
Shelah says the only way for northern Israelis to return home is to end the nearly 11-month-old offensive on Gaza. “This is the position of the security establishment, which for reasons of prestige does not explicitly state it, but rather expresses support for a deal to release the hostages, which implies the same outcome,” he explains.
The newspaper analyst Haaretz Amos Harel points out in an article that the “urgent need” for an agreement between Israel and Hamas for the release of the hostages is not only to achieve this goal, but also to stop “the massive bloodshed”, also on the northern front. “Israel is paying the high price of a war that is difficult to win and that continues to drag on without seeing an end,” Harel laments.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Monday that Hezbollah had suffered a “devastating blow,” adding that it was “one more step” toward changing the situation on the country’s northern border and “returning residents safely to their homes.” But he reiterated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s words: “This is not the end of the story.”
No progress in negotiations
On Sunday, as Israel and Hezbollah carried out the largest cross-border attacks in the past ten and a half months, talks to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza continued in Cairo, as part of a new round of negotiations that began on August 15 in Doha, promoted by the United States and Arab mediators (Egypt and Qatar). During the day on Sunday, no progress was recorded and the senior representatives of the two conflicting parties and the intermediary countries left the Egyptian capital.
“The high-level discussions of the last few days, with representatives of Hamas and Israel, were approached by all with the intention of reaching a final applicable agreement,” a source close to the negotiations explained to elDiario.es. “The process will continue in the coming days through working groups of mediators to continue resolving outstanding issues and details, based on the bridge proposal presented in Doha,” the source added.
The US negotiators have developed what is called a “bridge proposal” – which, as its name suggests, serves as a union between the demands of the two sides – based on the conditions announced by President Joe Biden in late May and which was supported by Egypt and Qatar. However, Hamas has remained firm in its rejection of the latest proposal because, according to it, it includes new conditions introduced by the Israelis. The Egyptians are also not satisfied with the conditions related to the presence of Israeli troops on their border with Gaza, in the so-called Philadelphia corridor. This is one of the points that remains on the table and that must be resolved in order to unblock the conversations and move forward.
According to Egyptian and Hamas sources cited by the EFE agency, Egypt proposed the departure of Israeli troops in two phases, in parallel with the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, while Israel said it would agree to withdraw “only three kilometers from Philadelphia. A negotiator from the Islamist group said that “there is still a way to go to reach an agreement” and reiterated some of the fundamental demands: “A complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a permanent ceasefire, freedom of movement of Palestinian residents to and from northern Gaza. This last issue is another thorny issue, since Israel demands to remain in the Netzarim corridor, which divides the Gaza Strip in two, to ensure that residents who return to the northern half do so without weapons.
One of the mediators in the conflict, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met in Tehran on Monday with the new Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, who thanked Qatar for its efforts to “immediately stop the war and the crimes committed by the Zionists in Gaza and establish a ceasefire.” Araghchi said his country would support any agreement accepted by Hamas. In fact, Iran has indicated that it has postponed its attack on Israel in response to Haniyeh’s assassination, pending the new round of negotiations bearing fruit.
“Iran has not directly retaliated to Haniyeh’s assassination … nor has it joined Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s preemptive strike on Sunday,” the U.S.-based Soufan Center notes. “For now, Tehran appears content to delegate its response to Axis allies, including Hezbollah.” The so-called Axis of Resistance is led by Iran and comprised of non-state actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, whose common denominator is hostility toward the United States and Israel. According to the foreign policy and security research and analysis center, this Axis “is trying to calibrate its plans to deter and pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire in Gaza.”
