The possibility of full-scale conflict in northern Israel hangs like a dark cloud over the nation. If, as Shakespeare has it, the dogs of war are indeed let slip, the armory of sophisticated Iranian-supplied weapons held by Hezbollah could inflict massive damage across the country. Equally, if forced into war, the IDF could decimate Hezbollah’s armed forces while Lebanon and its people, already enduring privation and distress, would inevitably suffer further unnecessary misery.
There are, however, reasons to believe that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, does not want a full-scale war with Israel. The country’s economy and its people are under extraordinary pressure. A nationwide poll conducted by Arab Barometer between February and April 2024 showed that around 80% of citizens find accessing food supplies, to say nothing of its cost, a problem. Many run out of food before they can afford to buy more. The provision of water, internet access and health care are patchy, while 92% of respondents to the poll reported constant electricity outages.
Two further findings from the Arab Barometer survey explain reluctance on Nasrallah’s part for a new all-out war with Israel.
Hezbollah as a political party garnered only 12% support nationally. If the 39% Shiite support is removed from the findings, then it emerges that no other segment of Lebanese society offered more than 1% support for Hezbollah as a political party
Regarding the Gaza war, the Lebanese people are strongly pro-Palestinian, yet they believe that the Biden administration should prioritize economic development in the Middle East over the Palestinian issue. The pollsters believe this finding underscores just how desperate circumstances in Lebanon have become.
Although Hezbollah is virtually a self-functioning state within the state of Lebanon, weaponized and funded to the hilt by Iran, its forces are nevertheless composed of young Lebanese men with mothers, wives and sweethearts. Hezbollah’s eight-year military support of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, which cost the lives of hundreds of young Lebanese fighters, is still resented. Up to 1250 Lebanese soldiers were killed in Syria between 2011 and 2019, when Hezbollah finally withdrew. Most Lebanese can see only death and destruction resulting from an unsought and unwanted war with Israel undertaken at the behest of the non-Arab entity, Iran.
This lack of political trust in Hezbollah outside the Shiite community translates into sustained criticism for waging a war against Israel without consulting other factions. Even the Qatar-based Al Jazeera acknowledges, in a report on July 3, that “some people in Lebanon, particularly from the Christian community, are very unhappy with Hezbollah.”
Samir Gagea and Samy Gemayel, Christian politicians who head the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb parties respectively, blame Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into an avoidable “‘war of attrition” and drawing Israeli attacks to Lebanese soil.
“Many Christian leaders are opposed to Hezbollah’s decision to open a front against Israel,” a Lebanon analyst toldAl Jazeera, adding that an additional intent may be “to show that not all of Lebanon is behind Hezbollah in hopes of perhaps sparing their areas the worst of a war with Israel.”
It is against this background that on July 10 Nasrallah issued a new and surprising policy statement. He announced that he was making Hezbollah’s future cross-border interchanges with Israel dependent on the success or otherwise of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.
“Hamas is negotiating…on behalf of the whole axis of resistance,” declared Nasrallah. “Whatever Hamas accepts, everyone accepts…If there is a ceasefire in Gaza then our front will also cease fire without discussion, irrespective of any other agreement or mechanisms or negotiations."
Nasrallah’s remarks came days after he met with a Hamas delegation headed by its foreign relations chief, Khalil al-Hayya. On July 14, following Israel’s attempt to assassinate the Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, some commentators assumed that Hamas would pull out of the current round of negotiations. Not so, perhaps becausethe leadership realizes that opportunities to escape from the Gaza Strip are rapidly diminishing. Having already signaled that it would drop its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire as a condition for starting truce negotiations, Hamas remains engaged.
Should a deal emerge, that is when Nasrallah’s new policy might come into effect. “That is a commitment,” he said recently during a televised address, “because [we are] a support front, and we have been clear [about this] from the start.”
In short, Nasrallah’s position now is that the increase in cross-border military activity since October 7 is not the precursor to an all-out conflict with Israel, but action in support of Hamas. It is certainly true that in his much-trumpeted speech on November 3, 2023 Nasrallah, while predictably praising Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel, was at pains to emphasize that it had been a purely Palestinian enterprise. He asserted, whatever the truth of the matter, that neither Iran nor Hezbollah had had any part in planning or carrying out the operation, and that in present circumstances neither found it expedient to support Hamas by opening full-scale hostilities against Israel. He wanted the subsequent conflict to remain Palestinian.
His latest pronouncement is consistent with this position, but it also reveals his lack of appetite for embarking on an all-out conflict with Israel. It is to be hoped that Israel will, without swallowing Nasrallah’s words whole, take some account of them. A few days before Nasrallah spoke, defense minister Yoav Gallant was in northern Israel, and what he said was uncompromising.
Gallant saw no obvious relationship between Israel’s military operations in Gaza and in Lebanon. They are “two separate sectors”, he said. He rejected any attempt to connect a hostage deal in the south to the on-going conflict along the Lebanese border. To solve the latter a separate deal between Hezbollah and Israel would, he thought, be necessary.
“Even if there is a ceasefire [in Gaza],” he said, “here we continue to fight.” He further asserted that “we are ready for anything, but we are prepared for the fact that if they come to attack us, or if they try to harm us, or if they do not allow us to return our citizens safely to their homes – we will act.”
What Gallant may not yet have considered, however, is what Israel’s reaction would be if Hezbollah, on the conclusion of a ceasefire in Gaza, suddenly ceased all military activity aimed against northern Israel. That is surely an eventuality worth pondering.
