Quick Take
The Israeli confrontation with Hezbollah is an important escalation of hostilities, but the general paradigm that neither Hezbollah or Iran, and Israel, do not want an enlarged regional war still holds.
But one has to question - will there be another major escalation? What is quite confusing on the ground with Lebanon and Israel is that on the one hand you have the escalation of trading fire, and on the other hand you have the Minister of Defense of Israel, Yoav Gallant, saying that the Israeli military must prepare for a serious military operation against Lebanon. If that connotes another land war, that would truly be a major game changer, then the situation would escalate into a regional war.
But the Israelis should take a close look at their recent history. In 2006 they had a difficult time being embedded and bogged down in Lebanon, and it took them 18 years get out of Lebanon after they invaded in 1980s.
So is Israel going to actually seriously contemplate and act on a land incursion? The Netanyahu government is under a lot of pressure, because you have 50 or 60,000 Israelis who have been displaced in northern Israel, which is a very serious political issue for the Israeli government, but the options are dire.
The one thing that can reduce the violence and prevent, in my eyes, an escalation, is if there is an agreement on the situation in Gaza: a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the beginning of determining the way forward in Gaza. Hezbollah as well as the Houthis have made clear that if the ceasefire and the fighting ends in Gaza, then they will end their military operations against Israeli targets.
On October 8, the day after Hamas launched its deadly terror attack on Israel, Hezbollah began attacking Israel’s northern border, declaring its support for the Palestinians as long as the fighting in Gaza continued. These attacks occurred without any provocation from Israel, built upon long time violations of UN Resolution 1701 by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s attacks, which targeted both military and civilian targets, resulted in significant damage and casualties, displacing tens of thousands of Israeli families. The deadliest attack occurred in July, when a rocket hit Majdal Shams, killing 12 teenagers playing soccer.
After months of proportional responses, Israel now has full legitimacy to defend its borders and citizens. Israel is currently intensifying its operations against Hezbollah's terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, aiming to restore deterrence, secure a ceasefire in the north, and decouple the Lebanese front from Gaza to facilitate a potential hostage deal that could end the war in all its fronts.
As the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah expands, a key question is how Iran will respond. Iran’s preferred strategy is to mirror that of the United States: staying in the background while continuing to supply weapons and diplomatic support.
However, as Israel decimates Hezbollah’s leadership and intensifies its bombing of Lebanon, Iran may deepen its cooperation with other "axis of resistance" members, including the Yemeni Houthis and Iraqi Shi’a militias, for more direct, on-the-ground involvement in the fight against Israel.
Meanwhile, this rapidly evolving conflict could present either a window of threat or an opportunity for Iran—both of which might push it beyond its nuclear threshold status and prompt more serious consideration of the weaponization option.
Israel’s brazen attacks on Hezbollah last week, in which hundreds of pagers and two-way radios exploded and killed at least 37 people, graphically illustrated a threat that cybersecurity experts have been warning about for years: Our international supply chains for computerized equipment leave us vulnerable. And we have no good means to defend ourselves.
But now that the line has been crossed, other countries will almost certainly start to consider this sort of tactic as within bounds. It could be deployed against a military during a war or against civilians in the run-up to a war. And developed countries like the United States will be especially vulnerable, simply because of the sheer number of vulnerable devices we have.