(CNN) — Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah are stepping up cross-border attacks after months of low-intensity fighting, prompting the Israeli military to warn this week that it is prepared to launch a large-scale attack on its border. north.
After more than eight months of crossfire between both sides, experts say that Israel believes that it can no longer ignore its northern front, nor delay the adoption of measures there.
It seems more likely that a war will break out, even if both sides do not want it, according to analysts.
This is what we know:
Why are Israel and Hezbollah fighting?
Lebanon and Israel have been officially at war for decades. Israel launched a devastating invasion of Lebanon in 1982, sending tanks into the capital, Beirut, after suffering an attack by Palestinian fighters in the country.
It then occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years, until Hezbollah ousted it in 2000. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is officially considered a “resistance” group tasked with confronting Israel, which Beirut classifies as an enemy state. Much of the Western world considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
Since then, both sides have exchanged fire sporadically, but tensions flared in 2006, when Israel went to war in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. More than 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, as well as 49 civilians and 121 Israeli soldiers, died in that conflict.
Two years later, Hezbollah returned the remains of kidnapped soldiers in exchange for the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as the bodies of fighters held by Israel.
Israeli armored personnel carriers near a mosque on the outskirts of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on June 16, 1982. Credit: Rina Castelnuovo/AP
The latest hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began after Hamas led an attack on Israel on October 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped, according to Israeli authorities. That led Israel to go to war with Hamas in Gaza, during which it has devastated much of the territory and killed more than 36,000 Palestinians. Hezbollah has stated that its current round of fighting with Israel is to support the Palestinians of Gaza.
The Lebanese group’s military capabilities have increased since 2006, when it relied heavily on inaccurate Soviet-era Katyusha rockets. Currently, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claims that his group has more than 100,000 fighters and reservists. The group is also believed to possess 150,000 rockets that could overwhelm Israel’s defenses if an all-out war were to break out.
Why have tensions escalated?
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has been gradually escalating since October 8, according to Heiko Wimmen, project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. It is a “slow-motion escalation” that is “increasing,” he said.
But both sides have moved closer to war in recent times as cross-border clashes have grown in number and scale. “It is clear that an escalation is taking place,” Wimmen said, especially given the death toll on both sides of the border and the type of weaponry Hezbollah has deployed.
On Wednesday, an Israeli reservist was killed in a Hezbollah attack on a northern Israeli town, bringing the total number of soldiers killed on the Israeli side to 19.
Israel and Hezbollah have also struck much deeper into each other’s territory than at the beginning of the war, when fighting was limited to an approximate 4 kilometer radius of the border on either side.
Hezbollah has fired 35 kilometers towards Israel, while Israel has attacked areas of Lebanon more than 120 kilometers to the north.
Cross-border attacks from Lebanon this week sparked major fires in northern Israel, which Israel blamed on rocket fire from southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah said it launched a “swarm of drones” at Israeli military facilities.
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it had attacked the Israeli Iron Dome defense system in the northern town of Ramot Naftali, using a guided missile. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said in a briefing Thursday: “I cannot confirm it at this time. I cannot confirm that this occurred.”
Amal Saad, a Cardiff University professor and Hezbollah expert, said the group’s escalation “is a marked departure from previous flare-ups that have occurred since October 8.”
“This stage goes beyond the mere response to Israeli attacks and the reestablishment of deterrence; it involves the transmission of new messages and strategies,” Saad wrote in X.
The conflict has become “highly visible” and “hard to ignore,” said Wimmen of the International Crisis Group, adding that Israeli officials feel compelled to respond, or at least be seen to respond, amid the pressure. to react from the far-right ministers of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Ronni Shaked, a scholar at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told CNN that the Israeli government and military are pushing for action in the north. “No one can live in this situation.”
What do both sides say?
The rhetoric has been heated by both sides, but experts say neither wants a full-blown conflict.
Netanyahu warned in December that Beirut would become Gaza if Hezbollah decided to launch an all-out war.
But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich this week poured cold water on the prospect of a broader war, stating that the IDF is not interested in expanding the war to eliminate Hezbollah. The military “is telling us right now that they don’t want to… launch an attack in the north, combat and defeat Hezbollah, and overwhelm it and create a safe zone.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a wreath-laying ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem , on May 6. Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters
During his visit on Wednesday to the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanese border, Netanyahu said Israel was prepared for “very intense action” in the north.
“Whoever thinks that they can harm us and that we will stand by is making a big mistake,” the prime minister said. “One way or another, we will restore security in the north.”
Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s second-in-command, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the group had considered Israel’s recent threats not serious.
“In any case, we have decided not to expand the battle and we do not want an all-out war. But if it is imposed on us, we are prepared and will not retreat,” Qassem declared, adding that Hezbollah will end its attacks against Israel when the war in Gaza ends. .
Is an all-out war likely?
Experts say that even if both sides do not decide to unleash an all-out war, their escalatory actions may inadvertently trigger one.
Wimmen of the International Crisis Group says it is unlikely that Israel and Hezbollah will make a conscious decision to start a war. However, the more intense the conflict, the further each side goes into the other’s territory and the heavier the weapons used, the more likely it is that “something will go wrong,” he said.
Netanyahu is under intense pressure from the opposition and members of his coalition to act in the north, especially given that so many Israelis have been displaced from the area.
An Israeli firefighter puts out flames in a field after rockets launched from southern Lebanon landed on the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona on Tuesday. Credit: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
More than 53,000 Israelis have been forced to leave their homes in the north, according to the IDF. In Lebanon, more than 94,000 people have been displaced from areas and towns near the border with Israel since the conflict began, according to figures published on Tuesday by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
“All Hezbollah strongholds must be burned and destroyed. War!”, declared this week the Israeli Minister of National Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvir.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid also criticized the government: “The north is burning in flames and Israeli deterrence burns with it.
“The government has no plan for the day after in Gaza, no plan to return residents to the north, no management, no strategy. A government of total abandonment,” Lapid said in X.
The United States has warned against escalation, concerned it could spiral out of control. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday that the United States is “incredibly concerned” about the risk of escalation, adding that the Biden administration is holding diplomatic talks “to try to prevent the conflict from spiraling out of control.”
Shaked, the Truman Institute scholar, said that despite Hezbollah’s claims that its attacks on Israel are in support of Gaza, the group’s strategy is likely to be closely coordinated with its closest ally, Iran, especially with so much in game.
— CNN’s Tamar Michaelis, Jonny Hallam, Mike Schwartz, Abbas Al Lawati and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
