Israel, Hezbollah and the makings of a regional conflagration 

On Wednesday, during Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress he said, “When we fight Hezbollah, we’re fighting Iran;” a potentially foretelling statement given tensions and strikes continue to rise between Israel and the group. Make no mistake, war between Israel and Hezbollah is not inevitable, but the regionalization of such a conflict probably is. 

The hopes of avoiding war are wrapped up in on-again, off-again, and now back-on-again negotiations over the long sought Israel-Hamas hostage deal. But the odds that a deal comes to fruition are uncertain at best, and negotiations are happening against a backdrop of intensifying attacks between Israel and Hezbollah. 

The biggest potential impact, which Washington has been sounding the alarm over, is that an Israel-Hezbollah conflict could prompt the direct war with Iran that was narrowly avoided in April, with Iran coming to Hezbollah’s defense. Maybe. For Iran, regime stability is always its priority, and coming to Hezbollah’s direct defense by attacking Israel would trigger Israeli retaliation and threaten to undermine that goal.   

But there’s another more dangerous pathway that begins with an Israel-Hezbollah conflict and ends in war with Iran. Israeli leaders may surmise that a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah provides a previously unavailable, and time-limited, opportunity to attack and set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program.  

Israel has long been concerned that attacking the program risks bringing about a multifront war in which Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi Shia militants, and others would all attack Israel simultaneously. But in a circumstance in which Hezbollah has already expended its most threatening and destructive missiles and weapons and Hamas, eight months into the war in Gaza is diminished, such concerns about a multifront war would be obsolete.

Tehran for its part would not allow to go unanswered a direct and massive Israeli military strike, thereby ensuring the expansion of the footprint and intensity of the war. 

While other factors, including potential U.S. opposition to such an attack, could weigh on Israeli decision makers’ minds, the reality is that Iran’s advancing nuclear weapons program might compel Jerusalem to view such a moment in time as a unique window of opportunity, coming before Iran once again begins to resupply advanced weapons systems to whatever remains of Hezbollah. 

But even in the absence of kinetic exchanges with Iran, an Israel-Hezbollah conflict would be far more intense than the 34-day war 2006 war between them in which all of Lebanon was under threat as well as northern Israel, a result of Hezbollah’s then relatively short-range rocket capacity. 

Eighteen years later, a war between Israel and Hezbollah would once again see Israeli missiles and rockets shake Beirut and Hezbollah’s stronghold of southern Lebanon, with Israel being clear it does not distinguish between the state of Lebanon and Hezbollah, the latter of which was part of the country’s government for years. But for the first time, Hezbollah missiles and rockets will reciprocally threaten not just the north of Israel but the entire country. 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week that Israel Defense Forces can launch an attack on Hezbollah “in an instant.” Former war cabinet member Benny Gantz said late last month, “We can plunge Lebanon completely into the dark and take apart Hezbollah’s power in days.” Earlier in June, Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz remarked that in such a conflict, “Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon will be severely hit.”  

Such rhetoric is probably part of an effort, unlikely to be effective, designed to convince Hezbollah to move their special forces (the Radwan) six to eight miles away from the Israeli border. Moving that short distance would, in theory, enable tens of thousands of Israelis to return home after months away, due to their being within range of Hezbollah’s shorter-range rockets. 

Such a result, especially if combined with an initial ceasefire in Gaza, would probably stave off an immediate conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, as the U.S. has been working feverishly to do.  

But if a conflict erupts, despite the rhetoric coming from Jerusalem, the challenge of destroying Hezbollah in short order is likely to be even harder than destroying Hamas.

Hezbollah’s weapons inventory is far more sophisticated than Hamas’s, with likely 150,000 – 200,000 missiles and rockets able to strike all of Israel. And while Israel’s defense systems would activate, the size of Hezbollah’s inventory and the close range of their launch, could both “overwhelm” the systems, while drones could potentially bypass them.                                                      

Compounding the risks of regional violence, Iraqi Shia militias have already offered to join a fight against Israel, an offer Iran is purported to be hesitant about. Houthi terrorists in Yemen, whose attacks on Western ships in the Red Sea continue aplomb, would almost certainly welcome a new excuse to fire missiles against Israel again. 

The Biden administration would be under severe pressure in such a situation to try to help defend Israel — just as it planned to do had Hezbollah launched a major attack against it in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said that Cyprus could be a target, perhaps most notable because the small European island nation is home to the United Kingdom’s Mediterranean military bases.  

As the potential for war looms, the only certainty is that while Israel and Hezbollah may be the primary actors in such a conflict, it won’t be contained to them alone – its consequences would instead be felt across the region and the world. 

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Middle East Program at the Atlantic Council and the former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council