Anchal Vohra
Foreign Policy / August 19, 2024
Even in far-reaching scenarios, Lebanon won’t easily turn on Shia militia.
The Blue Line that separates Israel and Lebanon is one of the most volatile borders in the world. Whenever the rhetoric between Israel and Iran escalates, or even when shepherds on either side cross over, anxieties of another conflict between Israel and Lebanon heighten. Conventional wisdom dictates that the mildest of confrontations on the border could provoke an all-out war.
But for the first time in a long while the fear of such a war is palpable. The Lebanese have started to stock up on basic necessities and are buying food, fuel, and diapers in bulk. Some Western countries have put their forces on alert to be ready to carry out evacuations, and more have called on citizens to leave the country while some commercial flights are still available.
There was chaos last week at Beirut-Rafic Hariri airport, the only international airport in the country, which was bombed in the last Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006. Israeli fighter jets have been flying low in Lebanese airspace, breaking the sound barrier and smashing windows, while an Israeli drone blares out an Arabic message calling on residents in Bint Jbeil, a town in southern Lebanon, to turn against Hezbollah.
Everyone in Lebanon agrees that the likelihood of a full-blown war with Israel is higher than any time since 2006. But if Israel’s goal is lasting deterrence of Hezbollah, a war may not be its best available strategy.
Some argue that the status quo with Hezbollah before Oct. 7, 2023, may have been the best-case scenario for Israel. The border had been mostly quiet since the 2006 war. Meanwhile, opposition to Hezbollah inside Lebanon was growing, as its alliance with Iran irked the influential Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman—Saudis are big investors in Lebanon—and the Beirut port blast angered the public.
One strategy the Israelis are now mulling is to keep any assaults limited to Hezbollah-dominated areas of southern Lebanon, a suburb of Beirut, and the Beqaa valley. This would further disrupt Lebanon’s already crumbling economy, but the main strategic goal would be to push the group’s Shia supporters into other areas of the sect-based country and thus increase social tensions. Israelis believe this could deter Hezbollah domestically. “I feel concerned about the Shias,” said Eran Lerman, former deputy national security adviser of Israel. “A lot of people have scores to settle with Hezbollah since the Beirut blast or since the killings of Sunnis in the Syrian war.”
He said that Israelis have nothing against the Lebanese people and even if a full-scale war unfolds, Israel will try “not to attack Lebanese infrastructure, and look for people we can work with on the ground,” he said in reference to anti-Hezbollah players in the country.
Over the last few years—as Lebanon’s currency plummeted, the country plunged into an economic crisis, and a port blast killed more than 200 people—opposition to Hezbollah has become more vocal, even among a section of the Shias. But there are no clear numbers, and some analysts believe that it is uncertain how the Lebanese will react when confronted with the Israeli enemy. Israel’s strategy to bank on domestic opposition and look for local allies may work, or it may not if Lebanese rally behind the group in national solidarity.
However, the biggest reason unaligned Lebanese can’t revolt against Hezbollah is the fact that the group is armed to the teeth and has a committed army of supporters.
During the Beirut protests, people found the courage to add Hezbollah’s name and the image of its leader Hassan Nasrallah on the same posters where they condemned other politicians for being ineffective and culpable. Hezbollah responded without hesitation. Hundreds of young Hezbollah supporters carried out bike rallies in downtown in a show of strength and conveying a message of what could erupt on streets if Hezbollah felt threatened.
The Lebanese Forces, a dominantly Christian political group that was once a militia and continues to be Hezbollah’s chief political adversary in Lebanon, is treading cautiously. Georges Okais, a Lebanese lawmaker with the group, ruled out a civil war. “Only Hezbollah is armed,” he said. “There’s no war between unequal sides.”
It’s not that all Lebanese back Hezbollah, but that they can’t yet afford to take the group on. If Israel wants to create suitable conditions for the group to be demolished by fellow Lebanese, it first needs to figure out what to do with Hezbollah’s weapons and followers and how not to go overboard in a way that has the opposite effect on its campaign. That’s a tall order. In times of war, it is unlikely that all pieces fall in place perfectly for Israel to achieve its goals.
Furthermore, Hezbollah isn’t just a group of a few thousand fighters. It is part of a community that sees the group as its defender and expresses faith in its chief, Hassan Nasrallah. The group enjoys the support of most people in Lebanon’s Shia Islam community (although not all) and others may side with it if Israel launches a full-scale invasion of Lebanon.
“The Sunnis opposed Hezbollah when the group fought on the side of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad who was killing Sunni rebels; but now they back Hezbollah, which is helping Hamas, which is Sunni, and Gaza, which is Sunni,” Sami Nader, a Lebanese political analyst, added.
While Hezbollah may have anywhere between 20,000 fighters, as some analysts have argued, and 100,000, as Nasrallah has claimed, it has many more supporters spread all over Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s network of support and spies is extensive. Its functioning is highly secretive. Most Hezbollah fighters lead normal lives, have day jobs, are committed to offer their services when called upon, and are discreet enough to hide their identities. Since it is hard to identify Hezbollah fighters, Israel wouldn’t know how to distinguish them from civilians even if it invaded.
In 2020, when I received a tip-off about the location of Hezbollah’s weapons stockpiles, I found myself in a visibly Shia village on the Lebanon-Syria border. The walls were plastered with photos of Hezbollah fighters who had died in the Syrian conflict, posters of Iran’s ayatollahs, and of Qasem Soleimani—the leader of the Quds Force branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who was assassinated in Baghdad in a U.S. strike.
It was a simple village with concrete homes, shops selling flour, sugar and candy. As I stopped to take a break and engaged in what I thought to be a casual conversation with a local farmer, he seemed to quiz me.
After he let me go, a farm vehicle chased my car and blocked my path. The driver, dressed in a dirty yellow shirt and wearing a cap, gave me a good look, asked me who I was, interrogated me a little longer, and asked to see my passport before he gestured I could be on my way.
However, that’s not where the adventure ended.
Two days later I received a call from Lebanon’s general security department. I was called in for an interrogation, and after several hours of questioning, I was let go with a warning to not wander around too much. It was an indication of how deep Hezbollah’s support network runs in Lebanon, how its fighters are residing amid unarmed civilians, and how it operates under the cover of state agencies.
If Israel carpet bombs Hezbollah-dominated areas, there will be a massive loss of life; and yet it cannot control these areas unless it occupies Lebanon, which will almost certainly lead to an indeterminable long war and strikes deep within Israel.
Hezbollah is not a group of people wearing uniforms or wielding arms but a community inhabiting entire villages, neighborhoods, and cities. Will Israel eliminate entire populations to defeat its adversary? And will that bring it safety or an extended conflict?
Elias Farhat, a former general of the Lebanese Army, said that while there was no doubt that Israel is militarily stronger with a conventional army and weapons, “Hezbollah resorts to asymmetric warfare.”
“It deploys its units in hideouts, tunnels, and caves with no appearances,” he said, implying that Israel wouldn’t know who the enemy is. “A full-scale invasion allows Hezbollah to cause heavy damages in the heart of Israel between Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. … We don’t rule out an advance of Hezbollah in Galilee.”
Lerman said Israel was aware of the costs but if Hezbollah did not back off—which would mean stopping attacks on Israel and withdrawing to the Litani River as agreed upon in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701—Israel would be forced to carry out an assault.
Israelis are in a tight spot. They can perhaps weaken Hezbollah if they attack, but they cannot defeat it definitively. On the other hand, Hezbollah’s insistence to stay put on the Blue Line with missiles aimed at Israel is a constant source of tension and anxiety among the Israeli people.
But Hezbollah has also measured its response—partly because it understands that Israel has much more fire power, but mainly because the Lebanese people do not want a war. It has said that the group doesn’t want a “total war” and that it would only invade northern Israel “in the context of any war imposed on Lebanon,.” Even Hezbollah needs some legitimacy to operate in Lebanon, and staying in control of the country is the biggest prize for both Hezbollah and its patron Iran.
However, Hezbollah has continued its limited attacks against Israel and has vowed to keep going unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
There is one way out of the mess: politics. By starting peace talks with the Palestinians and resolving that dispute, Israel could deny its raison d’être, and two existential problems will be solved at once.
Anchal Vohra is a Brussels-based columnist at Foreign Policy who writes about Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia
