Israel is stepping up its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hoping to deliver a crushing defeat to the Iranian proxy army that has threatened Israel’s security for decades. But the Israeli strategy is also about safeguarding the possibility of renewed diplomatic ties with Beirut, according to analysts.
A new government in Lebanon is keen to free the country from the grip of Hezbollah, which it blames for repeatedly dragging the country into conflict with Israel, destabilizing its security, political system, and economy.
Israel and Lebanon reached a ceasefire agreement in late 2024, after more than a year of devastating war. Since then, the Israeli military has continued to strike targets inside Lebanon on a near-daily basis. But a U.S.-led diplomatic effort “has been maintained, so there has been a channel for engaging and deconflicting,” says Rachel Brandenberg, a senior fellow at the Israel Policy Forum think tank in Washington.
Why We Wrote This
Israel is escalating its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hoping to deliver a significant blow against the Iran-backed militia. But the strategy risks derailing a potential diplomatic breakthrough with the new government in Beirut.
“There’s also a U.S. effort to mediate conversations between Israel and Lebanon to try to find some channel for a diplomatic agreement,” Ms. Brandenberg says, adding that, just a few weeks ago, there was even talk about creating a special economic zone in southern Lebanon, which borders northern Israel.
On Monday, weakened – but defiant – remnants of Hezbollah fired missiles and drones at Israel in revenge for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, giving the Israeli military the opening it was seeking to strike back with repeated waves of punishing airstrikes. The militia then began launching long-range missiles deeper into Israel.
Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and in a Beirut suburb intensified on Thursday, bolstered by Israeli ground forces pushing further into southern Lebanon. The Israeli military has sent evacuation notices to Lebanese villages to avoid airstrikes. It also warned the residents of Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, to “save your lives and evacuate your residences immediately.”
In all, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have told about 1 million residents of Lebanon to evacuate their homes, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
But the challenge for Israel now is to conduct an effective military campaign against Hezbollah while also preserving its nascent ties with a Lebanese government that also seeks to reduce the group’s influence over Lebanon.
“Eliminating the enemy within”
Israel has been calling for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, but that has yet to happen. “The thinking is that Israel is now coming in and clearing what remains of Hezbollah, that this will help boost the Lebanese government’s strength,” says Shira Efron, an Israel analyst at RAND, a think tank based in Santa Monica, California.
“The move is not seen as anti-Lebanon, but pro-Lebanon, eliminating the enemy from within,” she said during a briefing this week, referring to Israel’s latest military campaign. “The problem is that we know how these things start, but we don’t know how they end.”
The strategy carries big risks. If significant numbers of Lebanese civilians are killed in Israeli airstrikes, or if the evacuations continue and daily life is disrupted, that could lead to a backlash that might destabilize the fragile government in Beirut, and entrench the same forces Israel wants to neutralize.
Historically, Israel has held the Lebanese government responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, which grew into a powerful political actor, says Jacques Neriah of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Mr. Neriah was also an adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
But Lebanon’s government, formed just last year, has been working to distance itself from Hezbollah.
“Israel saw the crack between the government and Hezbollah and decided to concentrate on Hezbollah and to encourage the Lebanese government to go forward in trying to impose its sovereignty, its responsibility, and its management of the situation in Lebanon,” Mr. Neriah says.
This latest round of Israeli attacks is focused on weakening Hezbollah further, while avoiding strikes against the Lebanese state, says Amos Yadlin, a retired major general and founder of Mind Israel, a think tank in Tel Aviv.
“However, if Hezbollah crosses a red line, Lebanon could suffer as well – though that is not the objective,” Mr. Yadlin says. That might constitute Hezbollah attacks on Israeli power stations or missile fire causing large numbers of civilian casualties, he adds.
Lebanon’s government announced a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities after it fired its first salvo at Israel on Monday. It also reportedly carried out a round of arrests of Hezbollah members and threatened to detain members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Lebanon.
The IDF said it deployed troops deeper into southern Lebanon as an “additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel.” Those soldiers on the ground are expected to tackle the dismantling of Hezbollah’s vast military infrastructure – specifically missiles, launchers and drones. That firepower is what prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes along the northern border during Hezbollah’s war of attrition against Israel following the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Those same Israelis, most of whom returned home only a few months ago, are now under fire again from Hezbollah.
Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, said on Tuesday: “We are operating in parallel on two fronts. We are operating in Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. These are two major adversaries of ours, and they share many characteristics. This is one axis – the Shiite Axis, the Iranian axis and its proxies.”
Hesitating before attacking
It took Hezbollah two days before deciding to attack Israel, knowing the retaliation would be fierce and that it would spark pushback against the group from within Lebanon.
But Hezbollah “are nothing in Lebanon if they are without Iran,” said Sima Shine, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, during a media briefing.
And Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, didn’t have a choice, according to Eyal Hulata, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Dr. Hulata told Channel 12: “He found himself in a trap from which there was no way out.”
Mr. Qassem defended Hezbollah’s resumed strikes against Israel, claiming they were in response to Israel’s intermittent airstrikes in Lebanon that followed the November 2024 ceasefire.
Mr. Neriah warns of the risk of Israel overstepping. If the expansion of the “buffer zone” inside Lebanon becomes permanent, Israel will once again be seen as an “occupier” that threatens to weaken the Lebanese government.
“This would prevent the government from having an independent agenda,” and would force it to rely on others to resist the Israeli presence, he says, planting the “seed for the next Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
