The Lebanon Front

Why now?

Things in Lebanon are evolving quickly, and I can start to discern the strategies that Hezbollah and Israel might be employing, respectively. A notable development is that Israeli troops have begun advancing from their limited footholds in southern Lebanon, while the Israeli government has announced the mobilization of 100,000 reservists. This is risky and suggests that Israel sees an opportunity to deal something like a death blow to Hezbollah. Hezbollah was battered in 2024, but the IDF’s ground offensive into Lebanon stalled, much like it had in the 2006 war. The IDF’s infantry is third-rate and very casualty averse, so they have struggled to take and hold territory. The IDF has typically prioritized using air power to bomb its opponents into compliance, if not submission. Where it has made advances in Gaza, it has only been able to cement them by expelling the local population, bulldozing everything flat and setting up semi-permanent fortified positions.

This works in Gaza, where the landscape itself is very flat, and Hamas militants lack the kinds of anti-tank missiles that can interdict Israeli armour. Hamas relies on domestically-produced tandem HEAT RPGs that are cheap and plentiful, but generally fail to penetrate Merkava tanks, especially those that are equipped with Trophy systems and passive reactive armour. Until late 2024, Hezbollah had access to a direct pipeline of modern weapons from Iran and Syria. This includes guided anti-tank missiles based on the Russian Kornet and Israeli Spike. It’s very likely that Hezbollah’s stockpile of ballistic missiles has been destroyed and/or depleted, but their stockpiles of anti-tank missiles and Grad rockets could still be fairly deep. In the terrain of southern Lebanon, which is hilly, rocky, forested and fortified with tunnels and bunkers, they could inflict serious damage on IDF ground troops while peppering northern Israel with short-range rockets.

That’s why I find it surprising that Israel has committed to another ground invasion. Their leadership must think that Hezbollah was quite weakened, and in one sense this is true. Lebanon is the only front on which Israel scored what I view as a clear victory since October 7th 2023. The 2024 campaign against Hezbollah succeeded by combining three prongs. First, IDF airstrikes decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, especially the charismatic Hassan Nasrallah. Second, IDF airstrikes punished Lebanese civilian targets, particularly in Hezbollah’s Shi’a political base. Third, the Biden administration assisted Israel in manoeuvring domestic opposition to Hezbollah in Lebanon. All of these factors combined to severely erode Hezbollah’s domestic position, making it impossible for them to maintain their “support front” against Israel. It was a political victory for Israel more than a military victory for the IDF. The very limited Israeli ground campaign likely means that most of Hezbollah’s armed force is intact, along with its underground fortifications and lighter weapons.

Do the conditions exist for another Israeli victory? Possibly. Hezbollah’s domestic position in Lebanon has not bounced back. If anything, the new Lebanese government is more hostile to Hezbollah than the previous one, and Lebanon’s population is exhausted from war and economic collapse. On the other hand, it’s not clear if the Trump administration has the finesse to provide Israel with the kind of diplomatic manoeuvring in Lebanon that made their 2024 victory possible. Additionally, I think Israel may have overreached in their actions against Lebanon during the so-called ceasefire. They maintained ground troops in Lebanon along the border, demolished multiple villages, and frequently bombed what they called “Hezbollah targets”, ostensibly to disrupt their ability to reconstitute themselves. In other words, it was not the kind of status quo that can be sustained indefinitely. Additionally, the renewed Israeli ground invasion seems like a case of hubris. They may be expecting that they can unleash even greater terror on civilian targets while the world’s attention is on Iran, but this could backfire by galvanizing Hezbollah and Lebanese Shi’a against Israel. Sufficient Israeli terror against Lebanon as a whole could turn other factions against Israel as well, but this is hard to predict. For now, the Lebanese government and army lack the capacity to disarm Hezbollah or to defend Lebanon from Israel.

Hezbollah’s main domestic concern will be maintaining the support of their constituency. This is why I expect that Israel will double down on terrorizing Lebanese Shi’a, but that approach only works in the long term if there’s a carrot to go with the stick. Is Israel offering a withdrawal and an end to the bombing in exchange for Hezbollah’s effective capitulation? Does Israel have the support of an alternative party for Lebanese Shi’a, such as Amal? (They fought alongside Hezbollah last time, but seem to have turned against them just before the current chapter started.) If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then Hezbollah’s popular support may crumble. But there’s a significant chance that Israeli leadership, buoyed by their successes and dominated by right-wing expansionists, will overreach and attempt to establish a permanent occupation over southern Lebanon. In that case, Lebanese Shi’a may view Hezbollah as the only defence against occupation and colonization. These are calculations that may not particularly interest Israel’s hardline government.

Now let’s examine Hezbollah’s motivations for joining the fray. The ceasefire was extremely lopsided, and Israel never really stopped firing, but it’s clear that Hezbollah deliberately launched a volley of rockets to instigate this round of hostilities. Initially I thought their recent actions were reckless, but I’m starting to think they were more calculated. So why now? First, the assassination of Ali Khamenei created a martyr for Twelver Shi’a around the world, likely steeling the resolve of Hezbollah’s leadership and footsoldiers. Second, with the Israeli air force preoccupied over Iran, their capacity over Lebanon will be diminished. I expect the IAF will rely more on brazen targeting of large civilian targets such as apartments buildings in south Beirut, because they won’t have the same amount of aerial surveillance and bombing resources at their disposal to attack Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon or provide air support to IDF ground troops. Third, Hezbollah have likely spent the last year+ licking their wounds, recalibrating and learning hard lessons from the last round of war. They may believe they have enough resources and a winning strategy. Fourth, they will want to renegotiate the last ceasefire and re-establish deterrence so as to return to something like a 2006-2023 status quo, because the post-2024 was quite bad for them. And finally, they may hope that they can piggyback off an Iranian win and get a better deal as part of a comprehensive agreement with the US. It’s entirely possible they were watching events in the Gulf and calculated that an Iranian asymmetric victory was the likely outcome, because they waited several days before joining on the Iranian side.

All of that being said, this is a big gamble for Hezbollah, possibly an existential one. They are betting everything on this round of war. I don’t feel comfortable making any concrete predictions, but we have two previous Hezbollah victories (2000 and 2006) and one previous Israeli victory (2024) as reference points. Assuming this is a short campaign like 2006 or 2024, there may not be a clear tactical winner. Instead, we will need to look at the bigger strategic picture to figure out who won and who lost. But I would not discount the possibility of a full-scale and invasion and occupation attempt by Israel, as in 1982. In that case, Hezbollah or whatever replaces it might go underground and fight a classic guerrilla war. If 2000 is any guide, Israel may eventually withdraw from southern Lebanon and hand Hezbollah a victory. But I don’t think the Israel of 2026 is anything like the Israel of 2000. If Gaza is any guide, Israel’s approach to occupation might look less like guerrilla war and more like genocidal conquest. In other words, Israel may try to erase the towns and villages of southern Lebanon and permanently occupy them. It may even attempt to establish Israeli settlements in southern Lebanon. But a permanent occupation of any kind would likely engender some form of persistent armed resistance. As the occupation of Palestine makes clear, that is not a recipe for long-term stability. But Israeli has become an occupation state that seems to thrive on permanent war, so I wouldn’t underestimate its ability to sustain an indefinite occupation, even at the cost of reputation, economy and diplomatic status.