About 100,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 in Israel have been displaced, with scores of schools and health centres shuttered in both countries.
More than 460 people in Lebanon have been killed, most of them militants. More than 100 were civilians, including 12 children and 21 health workers, according to the UN and Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Strikes on Israel have killed 21 Israeli soldiers and eight civilians, according to the Israeli government.
Hezbollah supporters listen to a speech by the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, near Beirut, in May.Credit: The New York Times
The chances of a miscalculation have risen in recent weeks as both sides have tested each other with particularly provocative attacks and statements.
And the threat of a regional escalation was highlighted by a drone strike on Tel Aviv on Friday that was claimed by the Houthis, the Yemeni militia backed by Iran. Israel responded by striking the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Saturday, and the Houthis fired a missile toward Israel on Sunday.
Since the start of June, the Israeli military has killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and said it had finalised plans for an “offensive” in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the country was “very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon”.
“In an all-out war,” he said, “Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit.”
During the same period, Hezbollah has fired two of its largest barrages since the start of the war, sending hundreds of rockets into Israel. It taunted Israelis by broadcasting aerial footage of the Israeli city of Haifa, filmed from a drone that seemed to have evaded Israel’s air defence system. Shortly afterwards, Nasrallah said an invasion of northern Israel remained “on the table”.
As well as a militia, Hezbollah is a powerful political force in Lebanon. Analysts say the group fears losing that social influence if it is deemed by the Lebanese public to have dragged the country into an unnecessary and disastrous war.
Iran also fears a major war that could damage its biggest regional proxy, analysts and officials say. To protect Hezbollah, Iran wants a ceasefire in Gaza because it thinks it could lead to a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to an Arab official briefed on Iran’s position, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
Publicly, Iran has ramped up its rhetoric. In June, it threatened an “obliterating war” if Israel launched a full-scale attack in Lebanon and said “all options,” including the involvement of Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East, “are on the table”.
In Israel, the government needs a pretext to return tens of thousands of civilians who evacuated the area bordering Lebanon in October.
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A bigger war with Hezbollah could eventually provide that pretext: by invading Lebanon, the Israeli government could tell domestic audiences that it had pushed Hezbollah away from the border, even if analysts are sceptical that such an outcome is possible.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
