Israel is intensifying 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 also consists of safeguarding the possibility of renewing diplomatic ties with Beirut, according to analysts.
A new government in Lebanon is eager to free the country from the control 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 at the end of 2024, after more than a year of devastating war. Since then, the Israeli army has continued to attack targets inside Lebanon on an almost daily basis. But a U.S.-led diplomatic effort “has continued, so there has been a channel for dialogue and deconfliction,” says Rachel Brandenberg, a senior fellow at the Israel Policy Forum think tank in Washington.
Why do we write this?
Israel is stepping up its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hoping to deal a significant blow to the Iranian-backed militia. But the strategy risks derailing a potential diplomatic breakthrough with the new government in Beirut.
“There is also an effort by the United States to mediate talks between Israel and Lebanon to try to find some channel for a diplomatic agreement,” Brandenberg says, adding that just a few weeks ago there was even talk of 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 assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, giving the Israeli military the opportunity it sought to retaliate with repeated waves of punishing airstrikes. The militia then began launching long-range missiles toward Israel.
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and a Beirut suburb intensified on Thursday, reinforced by the advance of Israeli ground forces into southern Lebanon. The Israeli army has sent evacuation notices to Lebanese villages to avoid airstrikes. He also warned residents of Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, to “save their lives and evacuate their residences immediately.”
In total, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have told around 1 million Lebanon residents to evacuate their homes, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
But the challenge for Israel now is to carry out an effective military campaign against Hezbollah while preserving its budding ties with a Lebanese government that is also seeking to reduce the group’s influence over Lebanon.
“Eliminate the enemy within”
Israel has been calling on the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, but that has not happened yet. “The idea is that Israel is coming in and cleaning up what’s left of Hezbollah, which will help increase the strength of the Lebanese government,” 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,” he said during a briefing this week, referring to Israel’s latest military campaign. “The problem is that we know how these things begin, but we don’t know how they end.”
The strategy carries great risks. If significant numbers of Lebanese civilians are killed in Israeli airstrikes, or if evacuations continue and daily life is disrupted, that could lead to a backlash that could destabilize the fragile government in Beirut and entrench the very forces Israel wants to neutralize.
Historically, Israel has held the Lebanese government responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, which grew to become a powerful political player, says Jacques Neriah of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs and Security. Neriah was also an advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
But Lebanon’s government, formed only last year, has been working to distance itself from Hezbollah.
“Israel saw the rift between the government and Hezbollah and decided to focus on Hezbollah and encourage the Lebanese government to move forward in trying to impose its sovereignty, its responsibility and its management of the situation in Lebanon,” Neriah says.
This latest round of Israeli strikes is focused on further weakening Hezbollah, while preventing attacks 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 also suffer, although that is not the goal,” Yadlin says. That could constitute Hezbollah attacks on Israeli power plants 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. He was also reported to have 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 had deployed troops to southern Lebanon as an “additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel.” Those soldiers on the ground are expected to deal with 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 October 7, 2023.
Those same Israelis, most of whom returned home only a few months ago, are now again under fire from Hezbollah.
Eyal Zamir, IDF chief of staff, said Tuesday: “We are operating in parallel on two fronts. We are operating in Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. These are two big adversaries of ours, and they share many characteristics. This is an axis: the Shiite axis, the Iranian axis and their proxies.”
Hesitating before attacking
Hezbollah took two days before deciding to attack Israel, knowing that the retaliation would be fierce and would provoke a response against the group from inside Lebanon.
But Hezbollah “is nothing in Lebanon without Iran,” Sima Shine, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said during a news conference.
And Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, had no choice, according to Eyal Hulata, an Iran expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Dr. Hulata told Channel 12: “He found himself in a trap from which there was no way out.”
Qassem defended Hezbollah’s resumption of attacks against Israel, stating that they were in response to Israel’s intermittent airstrikes in Lebanon that followed the November 2024 ceasefire.
Neriah warns of the risk of Israel overreaching. If the expansion of the “buffer zone” within 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 force it to rely on others to resist the Israeli presence, he says, planting the “seed for the next Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
