Why the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has not sparked a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon — so far

Lebanon has witnessed pro-Palestine rallies organized by Hezbollah since the launch of the Israeli war on Hamas in Gaza on Oct. 7. (AN photo/ Marwan Tahtah)
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Updated 21 November 2023
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Why the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has not sparked a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon — so far

  • Exchange of fire among the heaviest since war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006
  • Analysts say Biden administration’s strategy for preventing a regional war is working, at least for now

DUBAI: The latest spike in border violence between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel has prompted concern that the war in Gaza could still ignite a broader conflict in the Middle East.

On Saturday, Israel reportedly struck an aluminum factory in southern Lebanon some 15 km from the border, while Hezbollah claimed to have shot down an Israeli Hermes 450 drone and launched five other attacks.

These recent exchanges of fire were among the heaviest since the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, which left the Beirut government with a colossal reconstruction bill and entrenched the Iran-backed militia in the country’s fabric.


Hezbollah members inspect the wreckage of a vehicle in which civilians were killed during an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, on Nov. 6, 2023. AFP

Black smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, in south Lebanon, on Nov. 4, 2023. AFP

“It’s very clear right now that Hezbollah and Iran both have a preference to avoid a larger direct confrontation with Israel,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Arab News.

“They are instead sort of managing what can be referred to as ‘gray zone warfare,’ short of a complete ceasefire or stalemate, but also short of a full-on war.”

This is something Iran and Hezbollah, with their paramilitary allies across the region, excel in, according to Maksad.

“They have the ability to dial this up or dial it down depending on the circumstance and what the situation in Gaza is, but it is not a full-on war,” he said.

“One of the main reasons for that is that Hezbollah is the single largest investment Iran has made outside of its borders.”

That investment has seen Hezbollah attacking Israeli troops since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas attacked Israeli towns killing 1,200 people and taking another 230 Israelis and foreigners hostage, according to Israel.

Israel fought a five-week war with Hezbollah in 2006 after the group’s fighters kidnapped two Israeli soldiers during a cross-border raid.

The conflict left an estimated 1,200 Lebanese and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, dead; displaced 4.5 million Lebanese civilians; and caused damage to civil infrastructure in Lebanon totaling $2.8 billion.

UN Resolution 1701, which was intended to resolve the 2006 conflict, bars Israel from conducting military operations in Lebanon, but Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of violating the resolution by smuggling arms into southern Lebanon.

INNUMBERS

• 90 People killed on the Lebanese side in cross-border hostilities since last month, at least 10 of them civilians.

• 9 People killed on the Israeli side, including six soldiers and three civilians, according to authorities there.

• 1,200 Number of Lebanese, mainly civilians, killed during the 2006 war with Israel.

 

“Hezbollah is the first line for deterrence and defense for the Iranian regime and its nuclear program if Israel decides to strike, and it is not going to waste that to try and save Hamas,” Maksad said.

While tensions along the Blue Line (policed by a UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL) separating Lebanon and Israel have not escalated beyond sporadic exchanges of fire, any miscalculation could potentially spark a regional conflict between Israel and Iran’s proxies.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has said “all options are open” but stopped short of declaring war. In Maksad’s opinion, it all indicates a clear preference from the relevant parties to avoid regional escalation.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Lebanese political analyst told Arab News: “The Americans, playing the role of mediator, don’t want a war, especially in a re-election year. The Gulf states are focused on economic growth and the price of oil, and so don’t want one. Neither does Iran or its proxies.”

Buttressing this impression, Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, has publicly stated several times that Iran does not want the Israel-Hamas war to spread.

“Iran achieved most of its objectives, such as disrupting Israel-Saudi diplomatic normalization and shattering the myth of Israel’s invulnerability, on Oct. 7,” Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at Arab Gulf States Institute, told Arab News via email.

“Hezbollah’s small provocations against Israel serve the purpose of complicating the calculations of the Israel Defense Forces, but as apparent in the Lebanese militia’s low fatalities in Lebanon and Syria since Oct. 7 (only 72 according to my database), Iran has no interest in sacrificing Hezbollah for the sake of the more expendable Hamas.”

Sought after or not, fighting continues to erupt on multiple fronts. This has included the hijacking of an Israeli-linked cargo ship and its more than two dozen crew members on Nov. 19 by Yemen’s Houthis, another Iranian proxy. Per reports, the militia claimed the ship was targeted over its connection to Israel.

Furthermore, American forces in Iraq and Syria have been subjected to 61 attacks by Iranian-backed militants since Oct. 17, according to the Pentagon.




A car belonging to Qatar's Al-Jazeera media network burns after it was hit by Israeli shelling in the Alma al-Shaab border village with Israel, in south Lebanon, on Oct. 13, 2023. AFP

Keen to walk a tight line, the US has struck back just three times, but it has bolstered its regional military presence. In late October, it deployed 2,000 non-combat US troops, two aircraft carriers with around 7,500 personnel on each, two guided-missile destroyers, and nine air squadrons to the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea region as a deterrent force.

Some are asking how long the US can afford to keep its aircraft carrier strike forces and nuclear submarines in the Middle East to deter a regional war while at the same time supporting the war in Ukraine.

“I do not believe there is a clear time limit,” Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States in Washington, told Arab News by email. “These aircraft carrier strike groups are designed to be at sea for long periods of time. I think they can stay there for a tremendously long time.”

The consensus view of these analysts seems to be that the Biden administration’s strategy for preventing a regional war is working, at least for now.




A shell that appears to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explodes over a house in al-Bustan, a Lebanese border village with Israel, in south Lebanon, on Oct. 15, 2023. AFP

“American efforts at deterrence have worked,” Maksad said. “Whether it is (via) the aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean or in the Gulf or the quiet diplomacy via messages that have been sent to Iran via various interlocutors warning of the consequences that America would very much get involved if the war spreads.”

He believes all the above elements have yielded a result and are managing the fighting so that it remains short of an all-out war or confrontation.

But what would change that equation? For one, might Israel turn toward Lebanon after settling scores with Hamas?

“Lebanon has dodged a bullet — so far,” said Maksad.

But a miscalculation could see Lebanon dragged into a larger war. In 2006, neither Hezbollah nor Israel wanted a war, but they ended up fighting for 34 days. And there is also a risk on the Israeli side, which has made it clear that it would not spare Lebanon were Hezbollah to join the war.

“What we are doing in Gaza, we can do in Beirut,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said on Nov. 11 in a warning to Hezbollah against escalating the violence along the border.

Gallant has reportedly shared with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken his desire to strike Hezbollah preemptively, but he has evidently been overruled by his Israeli colleagues.

If Hezbollah were to join the war, said Ibish, while Israel might be “badly hit with tens of thousands of casualties at a minimum,” Lebanon would be “utterly decimated and set back in generational terms.”

One turning point that could see Hezbollah dragged into the fighting would be Hamas’ impending destruction as a military organization.

“Hezbollah would then have a tough choice to make: whether to sit back and watch the Palestinian leg of the alliance being dismantled or try and throw in their lot in an effort to save them,” said Maksad. “I think that they wouldn’t. They would stick to the sidelines.”

Were Hezbollah to be sucked into the conflict more fully, though, the result would be devastating.

“What Hamas did on Oct. 7 is kindergarten stuff compared to what Hezbollah can do if it were to get involved more fully and it can at any time, but it doesn’t want to,” a Lebanese political analyst based in the country’s south told Arab News.

“Hezbollah’s job is to be a deterrent. Occupied Palestine wants to set a trap for Hezbollah to fall into. Hezbollah hasn’t fallen for it yet.”

Still, according to Ibish, an attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied Jerusalem could see Hezbollah dragged in.




Hezbollah members inspect the wreckage of a vehicle in which civilians were killed during an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, on Nov. 6, 2023. AFP

“That would be a different story, but if the war remains contained to Gaza, I think Hezbollah will be able to stay out of it,” he said.

“Indeed, one of the few things that all four actors who had the ability to make this a regional war — Israel, Iran, the US and Hezbollah — could agree upon from Oct. 7 is that this war must not spread to include Hezbollah or anything of the kind.

“That is the main reason why it has not spread and why it probably will not spread.”

This then leaves the actions of third parties — such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions — operating inside Lebanon.

“Small groups might attack Israel with rockets or some such and have a ‘lucky strike,’ going further into Israel, well beyond the tacitly agreed upon one mile in each direction radius for contained skirmishing, and killing a significant group of Israeli soldiers, for example, 25 or more,” said Ibish.

“If that (were to) happen, Israel might retaliate with a great deal of force, unsure if Hezbollah was involved or it tacitly tolerated the action and needed to be blamed. Once rockets are flying and paranoia begins to set in, it is very common for armed foes to begin to misrecognize and misread each other’s intentions and actions. It can easily degenerate into a conflict that nobody wants.”

As if predicting a storm gathering on the horizon but whose course is still uncertain, the anonymous Lebanese political analyst said: “You can visit Beirut before the end of the year. I am sure there won’t be a war before then.”


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 18 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

People walk past shops in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2025
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More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

  • “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
 

 


Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

Updated 19 February 2025
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Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck weapons which it said belonged to the former Syrian administration in southern Syria.

 


Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

Updated 18 February 2025
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Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

  • France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco

ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.
 

 


Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

Updated 18 February 2025
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Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

  • Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently

BAGHDAD: A major pipeline connecting Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkiye is ready to reopen and resume exports, the Kurdish foreign minister said on Tuesday, potentially ending a dispute between Baghdad and Irbil that led to the closure of the pipeline in 2023.
Foreign Minister Safeen Dizayee declined to say when the pipeline would reopen but said it would mark a turning point in relations between Kurdistan and Baghdad.
Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday the Iraq-Turkiye pipeline (ITP) will resume next week.
“All arrangements that were set on the table have been agreed to, with the aim to prepare for re-exports. There shouldn’t be any hiccups. The legal aspects have been met, the technical aspects are in place,” Dizayee told Reuters by phone. “The button just has to be pushed to increase production and then re-export.”
The oil flows were halted by Turkiye in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized pipeline exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.
Negotiations to restart the pipeline have been ongoing, with US officials participating in some of the talks.
Resuming oil exports will boost the Kurdistan region’s budget, Dizayee said.
“This means Kurdistan will benefit from the federal budget and hopefully this will end the saga of (civil servants’) salaries coming or not coming, received in dribs and drabs,” Dizayee said.
Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently.
Oil producers in the Kurdistan region have had to wind down production without an export route. It will likely take some time for them to restart their oil wells and for the pipeline to use its full capacity. Before it was shut down, it transported around 450,000 barrels per day.
“They’ve invested a lot. It was a risk they took and it must pay off. They [the companies] need assurances that their investment will not be down the drain,” Dizayee said. “Compensation is something that needs to be discussed.”
An international consultancy will be brought in to do an assessment of the cost of production, expenses, cost recovery and the production sharing agreements, he said.