Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah supporters wave their party flags and the Palestinian flags during a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs to praise the unexpected attack by Hamas militants against Israeli towns and settlements near the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/picture alliance via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A senior Pentagon official told reporters Monday they were “deeply concerned” that Lebanese Hezbollah could choose to open up a “second front” against Israel in the wake of Hamas’s deadly attack over the weekend, but some analysts told Breaking Defense they thought the armed group would be wary of making such a move.
“Hezbollah has done just enough to demonstrate political support and solidarity, without committing itself to full conflict with Israel,” Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East Security program at the Center for a New American Security, told Breaking Defense Monday. “They may take a wait-and-see approach, but Israel recognizes the importance of demonstrating strength so Hezbollah leaders think twice before opening a second front on Israel’s northern border.”
As tense as the situation at border might be after Hamas’ attack on Israel from Gaza, Lord and others said a large scale war between Lebanon and Israel doesn’t seem imminent, because neither side likely sees an advantage to escalating the situation.
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Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has publicly lauded Hamas’s assault with a senior official, Hashem Saffieddine, saying, “We are with you, and our hearts, souls, missiles, and rifles are with you.” But beyond a much smaller exchange of rocket fire and artillery by Hezbollah and Israeli forces Monday, the group has yet to launch any large-scale operation. (Iran has denied involvement in the attack, and while the US has criticized Iran’s support for Hamas, officials have said they haven’t seen information of Tehran’s direct hand in it.)
“Hezbollah so far is trying to show solidarity with the Palestinians without provoking a major conflict of its own. Its artillery was deliberately targeted at a long-disputed area, knowing that this would not create new alarm bells in Israel,” Daniel Byman, senior fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Breaking Defense.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Hamas’s attack actually makes a large-scale Hezbollah action less likely — for now.
“While the situation is tense, if Hezbollah wants to go to war with Israel, it will likely do so by surprise, unprovoked, like Hamas did on October 7,” he said. “In the case of Hezbollah firing across the border on an Israeli target, the move looks more like public messaging than war posturing.”
David Des Roches, associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies, agreed that Hezbollah’s response didn’t amount to a serious attempt to enter conflict.
“I think it was a symbolic attack against the most marginal part of the Lebanese frontier so that Hezbollah could claim to have taken part in the conflict without incurring a serious response from Israel,” Des Roches said.
Worst Case Scenario
That Hezbollah has yet to make any significant moves, of course, doesn’t preclude it from doing so in the future, especially if the rocket-and-artillery exchange sparks a larger assaults. If Hezbollah did decide to launch a large-scale attack, the analysts said, the result could be a full-scale war not seen for decades.
“Expect Hezbollah to try to replicate Hamas’ incursions and expect the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] launching a fierce invasion that looks more like 1982 than 2006,” Abdul-Hussain told Breaking Defense, referring to the First Lebanon War and 2006 Lebanon War, respectively.
CSIS’s Byman added that Hezbollah itself is military extremely formidable, far more so than Hamas, should it seek to get involved. However, he said it “has fought a long conflict in Syria, and its Lebanese constituents are not eager for a potentially calamitous clash with Israel.”
Des Roches said that were Hezbollah to enter the conflict in full, “I would expect that they would unleash their missile arsenal against the northern settlements of Israel. Given the emotion and stakes in Israel, I would expect Israel’s response to be less measured and proportionate than in past conflicts with Hezbollah,” adding that it appears that so far, Hezbollah appears to have made that calculation as well.
To stop such a war from coming about, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said it is in contact with “involved parties” and is “urging them to exercise maximum restraint & utilize UNIFIL’s liaison and coordination mechanisms to prevent further escalation and loss of life.”
Des Roches said, however, that based on past experience UNIFIL and the Lebanese military would be unlikely to restrain a Hezbollah that’s determined to act.
The US, meanwhile, is hoping that the movement of a carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean will be enough to deter any outside parties from widening the conflict beyond Gaza.
“… Iran-backed adversaries like Lebanese Hezbollah should not question the commitment of the US government to support the defense of Israel,” the senior official told reporters.
Breaking Defense’s Lee Ferran contributed to this report.
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