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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.rt.com/news/612465-war-between-israel-lebanon-inevitable/">rt.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The next Israel-Hezbollah war is now unavoidable – and it will be worse</h1>February 10, 2025</div>
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<a href="https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/robert-inlakesh/" class="gmail-description gmail-description-desktop"><em><font size="1"><strong>Robert Inlakesh</strong>
is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently
based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian
territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of
the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.</font></em></a> </p><p>Netanyahu has made it clear he wants to redraw the
region’s map, and the IDF’s refusal to withdraw backs up that intent
</p><div><p>Another round of violence between Lebanon and
Israel is not a matter of if, but when. Israel managed to extract a
series of tactical victories from the war so far, but did not possess
the capacity to defeat Hezbollah decisively. Now that Israel seeks to
maintain freedom of action inside Lebanon, it threatens a much more
violent outbreak than what was stopped by the November 27 ceasefire.</p><p>Much
of the analyses offered on the conflict between Lebanon and Israel,
which erupted into a paroxysmal battle in September 2024, trace its
origins back to October 8, 2023. However, this take is limited in its
scope and also often misses key lessons from the history of the
conflict.</p><h2>Understanding what shaped the Lebanon-Israel war</h2><p>A
day after the Hamas-led October 7 attack against Israel, it became
clear, through the public statements and actions of the Israelis, that
the war they sought to launch was intended to inflict maximum collective
punishment on the civilian population of Gaza. Although it often goes
unrecognized due to the shocking effects of the Hamas raid, at least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/08/israel-gaza-hamas-attack-netanyahu-warns-of-long-and-difficult-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">413 Palestinians were killed</a>
inside Gaza that day, most of them civilians. The next day, the
Lebanese group Hezbollah began opening fire on Israeli monitoring
equipment set up in the illegally occupied Shebaa Farms area.</p><p>After Israel conducted airstrikes in southern Lebanon and <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/7705" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">killed four Hezbollah members</a>,
the Lebanese armed group responded by opening fire on Israeli military
sites and surveillance equipment on October 9. That same day, former
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared a <em>“complete siege”</em> on Gaza and that <em>“<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we are fighting against human animals</a>”</em> to justify blocking all food, water, and electricity from entering the territory.</p><div>
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<p>Understanding the gravity of what had just happened, Hezbollah’s
secretary general, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, understood that they were
going to have to play a supporting role for the Palestinian armed groups
in Gaza. However, the group did not want to drag Lebanon into a
comprehensive war and repeatedly stressed this point. The one pledge
that Nasrallah made was <em>“Hamas will win,”</em> offering no other red lines.</p><p>From October 8, 2023 to September 20, 2024, Israel was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/25/mapping-10000-cross-border-attacks-between-israel-and-lebanon#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Armed%20Conflict,least%20752%20people%20in%20Lebanon." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">responsible for around 81% of all attacks between both sides</a>,
killing 752 people in Lebanon, while Hezbollah’s attacks killed 33
Israelis. The last time a war was fought between Lebanon and Israel was
in 2006, which began when Hezbollah conducted a raid and kidnapped
Israeli soldiers. This war was well planned by Hezbollah and resulted in
a victory for the group, as Israeli forces retreated from Lebanese
territory.</p><p>What made Hezbollah the first Arab force to claim a
real victory over Israel in 2006 was down to the absolute power
imbalance, in which a stalemate combined with tactical victories and a
well executed plan made it a defeat of the Israeli military. After this,
while Israeli forces committed thousands of violations of Lebanese
sovereignty – by land, sea, and air – occasionally assassinating
Hezbollah fighters in Syria that caused some brief border skirmishes,
the two sides veered away from all-out war.</p><p>In 2019, however, the Israelis began working on a <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-lebanon-blue-line-what-happening" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new security fence/wall along the Lebanese border</a>,
which cut into and annexed land clearly demarcated to be on Lebanon’s
side of what is known as the Blue Line. In 2023, the most significant
land grab was of the northern Ghajjar village, which was cut off from
Lebanon and opened for Israelis to visit. In addition, Israeli forces
repeatedly entered Lebanon in order to clear land between the fence and
Lebanese farm lands, resulting in repeated standoffs.</p><p>During the
period from 2006 to 2023, Israel had been working at infiltrating
Hezbollah and spying on the political party, while the Lebanese group
significantly strengthened its military power. This is of great
significance to the conflict that has taken place over the past 16
months, because Hezbollah in 2006 was somewhat comparable in power to
Hamas at the start of the war in October 2023.</p><p>Hezbollah was also
born out of the conflict between the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and Israel, when the Israelis launched their invasion of Lebanon
in 1982. The Israelis killed around 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese in
that war, which ended with a ceasefire due to the PLO’s surrender and
acceptance of deportation to Tunisia.</p><div>
<a href="https://www.rt.com/news/610182-israel-gaza-collateral-killing/" target="_blank">
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<p>Yet, after the PLO’s fighters and leadership left, Israel did not
leave Lebanese territory and instead occupied the south of the country,
while deploying its allied militias, including the Phalange Party, to
massacre thousands of civilians in and around the Palestinian refugee
camps. The lesson learned here for all future movements that would
emerge to fight Israel, was that you never surrender your weapons; hence
the Hamas slogan ‘victory or martyrdom’. The single biggest achievement
that Hezbollah recorded in its history was forcing Israel to withdraw
from Lebanese lands and give up on their occupation.</p><h2>Why war is inevitable</h2><p>It
is clear that the war between Lebanon and Israel, which lasted nearly
two months, was not one that Hezbollah was prepared for. Even after
Israel’s booby-trapped pager attacks, which injured thousands across
Lebanon, including many civilians, the Lebanese group still sought to
fight a limited battle, as evidenced by the speech given by Nasrallah at
the time. However, Israel did not stop there and decided to kill most
of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, including Nasrallah, making a war
unavoidable.</p><p>As early as October 8, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/8/israels-netanyahu-warns-lebanon-could-face-destruction-like-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">threatening Lebanon with the kind of destruction wrought on Gaza</a>.
While the assault that the Israelis launched was certainly devastating
to the civilian population, killing nearly 2,000 people, it was clear
that it had not decided to launch a Gaza-style attack. Meanwhile,
Hezbollah began using heavier missiles from its vast arsenal, but was
tame in its approach and was careful to make much of its strikes
symbolic or aimed at military facilities. This had nothing to do with
what either side may have liked to do, but there was strategic
constraint, which appeared to be deteriorating into the final week prior
to the ceasefire.</p><p>By late November, Israel had failed to make
meaningful advances on the ground in southern Lebanon and did not
achieve its objective of reaching the Litani River area. Meanwhile,
Hezbollah was not capable of equaling the level of destruction that
Israel was committing against Lebanese cities using their missile
strategy, it was also fighting essentially blindfolded and standing on
one leg after the blows it suffered. Both sides realized that the
inevitable result would be a stalemate, so in order to stop further
devastation, a ceasefire was reached.</p><p>After suffering a major
disruption to its supply line through Syria, the loss of its leadership
and many commanders, also battling to solve the issues of infiltration,
Hezbollah was severely wounded, but not destroyed. While the Israeli
tactical victories have now shifted the propaganda war to make Hezbollah
appear to be on its last legs, it is far from done. In fact, it still
maintains a formidable ground force of around 100,000 fighters, a
domestic weapons production capacity, and an abundance of ammunition,
which the Israeli military understands well.</p><div>
<a href="https://www.rt.com/news/610550-bloodshed-and-hope-for-peace/" target="_blank">
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<img alt="Bloodshed and a hope for peace: What does 2025 hold for Israel and the Middle East?" src="https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2025.01/xxs/677d6fdf85f5404cc200b16c.jpg" width="280" height="157" style="margin-right: 0px;">
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<p>The loss of Nasrallah is not a small thing and still lingers in the
minds of each and every supporter inside the country, many of whom still
yearn for revenge after what was just committed against their nation.
Israel proved incapable of beating Hamas after 15 months of all-out
devastation, committing one of the worst atrocities since the Second
World War. Hezbollah is still a much more capable fighting force than
Hamas, yet there are a number of constraints on it due to the domestic
political/economic/social situation inside Lebanon.</p><p>If Israel
chooses to stay inside Lebanese territory, for whatever reason, it will
only be a matter of time before action is taken. The next round will
also likely be much more bloody, and the death toll will make the
conflict last year seem relatively insignificant in comparison. This may
not happen in the immediate future and could even take over a year, but
the conflict is far from over and that is because there isn’t really a
ceasefire in effect as of now.</p><p>On November 27, Israel made a point
of not only violating it from the first moments and later advancing
further into southern Lebanon, it committed hundreds of violations of
the ceasefire. Israel has made it very clear that the new reality is
that it has full freedom of action and can remain inside pockets of
southern Lebanon for as long as it chooses. Therefore, there will have
to be a war to ensure that a real ceasefire is reached and Lebanese
territory will not be open season for the Israeli military to bomb,
shoot at, and kidnap civilians.</p><p>Netanyahu is now bragging about
changing the map of the surrounding region, while his new army chief of
staff, Eyal Zamir, recently declared <em>“<a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bydw2s6001e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2025 will continue to be a year of combat</a>.”</em>
Israel is acting aggressively, expanding its borders, and does not
appear to be backing down from its warmongering with Iran, which will
lead to even greater chaos. Hezbollah will have to carefully navigate
Lebanon’s domestic terrain and when it acts, implement a well oiled plan
if it chooses to retaliate against Israel’s daily assaults on its
country. All of the signs point to a dangerous escalation brewing.</p></div><p>The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.</p></div></div>
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