Has Lebanon’s Hezbollah been strengthened or weakened by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza?

1 / 3
Smoke billows above the Lebanese village of Bint Jbeil during Israeli bombardment on February 28, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (AFP)
2 / 3
Smoke billows above a Lebanese village during Israeli bombardment on March 4, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (AFP)
3 / 3
Smoke billows above a Lebanese village during Israeli bombardment on February 28, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 07 March 2024
Follow

Has Lebanon’s Hezbollah been strengthened or weakened by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza?

  • Lebanon is fearful tit-for-tat violence between Israel and Hezbollah could escalate into devastating conflict
  • Pressure to support Hamas in Gaza while avoiding all-out war with Israel puts Iran-backed Hezbollah in a bind

DUBAI: After a string of losses suffered by Hezbollah since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, Middle East analysts are increasingly asking whether the Iran-backed group has been politically and militarily weakened by the contained conflict in southern Lebanon.

Despite talk of a potential ceasefire in Gaza, there is no guarantee that Israel and Hezbollah will halt their deadly exchanges along Lebanon’s southern border. Nor would it put a stop to the suspected targeted killings of militia leaders deep inside Lebanese territory.




People inspect the site of an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in the southern Lebanese village of Odaisseh near the border with Israel on March 5, 2024. (AFP)

For Lebanon, even this relatively contained tit-for-tat between Israel and Hezbollah has been costly. Civilians living along the border have been killed while thousands have fled north over fears of an Israeli invasion.

On Monday, US envoy Amos Hochstein landed in Beirut in a bid by Washington to reduce regional tensions. His visit coincided with an attack on northern Israel, launched from Lebanon, that left an Indian worker dead and seven others wounded.




Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (R) meets with US envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut onn March 4, 2024. (REUTERS)

In a statement during the visit, Hochstein said an escalation “will not help the Lebanese or the Israelis return to their homes. There is no such thing as a limited war; a diplomatic solution is the only way out.”

To achieve “a lasting fair security arrangement between Lebanon and Israel,” Hochstein said “a temporary ceasefire is not enough” and that “a limited war is not containable.”

Security along the Blue Line, demarcated by the UN in 2000 after Israeli troops pulled out of southern Lebanon, “has to change in order to guarantee everyone’s security,” he added.




Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol the border area between Lebanon and Israel on Hamames hill in the Khiyam area of southern Lebanon, on October 13, 2023. (AFP)

Some analysts believe Hezbollah has done enough to demonstrate support for Palestinians and Hamas, and therefore has nothing more to prove by dragging Lebanon into a major war with Israel.

“It will emerge much stronger and already is stronger internally, because it can claim that it has deterred an Israeli attack,” Nadim Shehadi, former head of the Middle East program at London’s Chatham House, told Arab News.

“If there is no all-out war, then Hezbollah can shut down all the critics of its arms and declare all its opponents as collaborators with the enemy, because they will claim that Hezbollah’s arms protected Lebanon and deterred an attack.

“This is, of course, getting less convincing as Israel escalates, but in the end, they will twist it in their favor.”

INNUMBERS

• 10 Israeli soldiers and reservists killed by Hezbollah and other militia attacks since Oct. 8.

• 229 Hezbollah members killed by Israel, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria.

• 30 Civilians, three of whom were journalists, killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

Although all sides appear keen to avoid a direct military confrontation that could lead to a major regional conflict, there has been no lull in hostilities except as part of the temporary ceasefire in November last year during the Israel-Hamas war.

Speaking on Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy chief, Naim Qassem, reiterated that the militia, which says it is acting in support of Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas, would stop its attacks on Israel once the war in the enclave ends. “Stop the assault on Gaza and war will end in the region,” he said.

However, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has said that there will be no let-up in Israeli operations against Hezbollah even if a Gaza ceasefire is secured.




Israel has warned that there would be no letup in its operations against the Hezbollah in Lebanon for as long as they continue to post a threat. (AFP)

Indeed, there is pressure from more hawkish elements in Israel for the government to act decisively against the Hezbollah threat on the country’s northern border. Likewise, Hezbollah is under pressure to ride to the rescue of its Hamas brethren.

There are practical reasons why Hezbollah may be keen to avoid an all-out war with Israel. The availability of weapons, finance for postwar reconstruction and the objectives of Iran could all be key considerations in Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s calculations.

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

Through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, “Tehran has invested billions of dollars in Hezbollah’s missiles,” Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli lecturer, author and professor of Iranian politics at Reichman University in Israel, told Arab News.

“Their job, their most important priority, is to deter Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. If Hezbollah gets involved in a war against Israel now, with all those missiles, then Iran’s nuclear program will be left badly exposed.”




Hezbollah fighters take part in a ceremony to commemorate the party's fallen leaders in the Lebanese village of Jibshit, about 50 kilometers south of the capital Beirut on Feb. 15, 2024. (AFP)

Indeed, no matter how sincere its support for the Palestinian cause, Hezbollah has an incentive to keep its powder dry so it can continue to act as a credible deterrent against a pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iran.

“Another is the fact that if there is a war, this time around Iran cannot pay to rebuild Lebanon back like it did in 2006,” said Javedanfar.

“Iran’s economy is doing terribly now and has been under sanctions since 2012. Iranians won’t be able to pay nor restock Hezbollah’s ammunition, and this will all undermine Hezbollah’s position.”




A handout picture provided by the Iranian Army media office on October 27, 2023, shows missiles being fired during a military drill in the Isfahan province in central Iran. (AFP)

Since Hezbollah began its campaign in solidarity with Hamas on Oct. 8, ostensibly to draw Israeli resources away from the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a series of targeted drone strikes on militia commanders in Lebanon.

Hussein Yazbeck, whose precise rank in the militia is unknown, was killed on Jan. 3. Wissam Hassan Al-Tawil, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was assassinated on Jan. 8, while Ali Hussein Burji, aerial forces commander, was killed in southern Lebanon on Jan. 9.

Israel has also struck suspected IRGC and Hezbollah weapons depots and missile launch sites in Lebanon, many of which were situated in residential areas.

So far, the armed exchanges have resulted in seven civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 10 Israel Defense Force soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks on Israel from Syrian territory, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 229 members who have been killed by Israel, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 37 operatives from other groups, a Lebanese soldier and at least 30 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.




Hezbollah militants and supporters attend the funeral of Ali al-Debs, one of the militant group's commanders killed by an Israeli air raid two days earlier, in Lebanon's southern city of Nabatieyh on February 16, 2024. (AFP)

Lebanese ministers have continued to urge restraint. “At a time where we insist on calm and call on all sides to not escalate, we find the Israeli enemy extending its aggression,” Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, said in a statement last month.

The statement came in response to a deadly Israeli airstrike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, which left 10 civilians dead, including seven members of the same family and a mother and her two children. A day of mourning was called in the aftermath of the attack.

Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, condemned the “massacre,” adding that “the bloodshed in Nabatieh is on the hands of the international envoys, the UN and human rights organizations” for failing to act to reduce tensions.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, vowed to retaliate for the attack. “The enemy will pay the price for these crimes,” Hassan Fadlallah, a senior Hezbollah official, said in a statement.




Hezbollah supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah is seen on large television screen in Beirut as he delivers a televised address amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)

Soon after, a barrage of rockets was fired toward a military base in Safed in northern Israel, killing Israeli army Staff Sgt. Omer Sarah Benjo.

Although Hezbollah may have strengthened its position politically in Lebanon, while preserving its strategic advantage on behalf of Iran, there are some who will view the militia’s restraint as a sign of weakness at a time when its Palestinian allies were most in need.

“We don’t want war, but if they (the Israelis) attack us we’ll be sure to attack them back,” Ali Chedid, a resident of Dahiyeh, a predominantly Shiite suburb of Beirut and Hezbollah stronghold, told Arab News.




People inspect the damage caused by Israeli bombardment on Hezbollah targets along Israel's. borders with Lebanon. (AFP)

“Hezbollah has been doing a great job of showing restraint so far. It is not a matter of not having enough weaponry or funding to launch a war. Rather it is because we know if we set out to destroy Israel, we also will be destroyed in the process. We never claimed we would remain unscathed.”

For Chedid, the war in Gaza has put Hezbollah in an impossible fix that will be hard for its leaders to navigate if they hope to avoid, at the very least, tarnishing their reputation as champions of the Palestinian cause and the main bulwark against Israel.

“Hezbollah is damned if it attacks because then people will claim it is dragging the country into war for its own interests,” said Chedid. “It is also damned if it doesn’t because it will be accused of being all smoke and mirrors and having left Gazans to suffer alone.”

 


15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

  • SDF fighters “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” troops in the Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said
  • The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019

BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.


Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

 


Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

  • “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”

ANKARA, Turkiye: The engine of a Russian plane with 95 people on board caught fire after landing at Antalya airport in southern Turkiye on Sunday, Turkiye’s transportation ministry said. All passengers and crew were safely evacuated.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 type aircraft run by Azimuth Airlines had taken off from Sochi and was carrying 89 passengers and six crew members, the ministry said in a statement.
The pilot made an emergency call after the aircraft landed at 9:34 p.m. local time, and airport rescue and firefighting crews quickly extinguished the fire, according to the statement.
No one was hurt, the statement said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A video of the incident posted by the aviation news website, Airport Haber, showed flames coming out from the left side of the plane as emergency crews doused the aircraft. Passengers were seen evacuating the plane through an emergency slide, some carrying belongings.
The transportation ministry said efforts were underway to remove the aircraft from the runway. Arrivals at the airport were temporarily suspended while departures were taking place from a military-run runway.

 


War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area till end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area till end of December

  • Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
  • Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday

BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.


Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Updated 24 November 2024
Follow

Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

  • The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.

IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.

ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.