Israel’s ultimatum to Hezbollah: back off or go to war

The drumbeat of stepped-up strikes are part of what Israeli officials say is a new approach to its nearly year-long conflict with Hezbollah, aimed at forcing the militant group from the Lebanon-Israel border.

Smoke billows from an Israeli strike on the Jabal Al-Rehan area in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Picture: AFP

Israel is using escalating attacks on Hezbollah’s rank and file, commanders and infrastructure to press its military and intelligence advantage to give the Lebanese group an implied ultimatum: make a deal to pull back from Israel’s northern border, or go to war.

Israel is rotating its attention to its border with Lebanon as the Gaza Strip battlefield becomes static, launching an aggressive ­series of attacks that have devastated Hezbollah.

Last week’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks revealed that Israel has deeply compromised Hezbollah’s communication systems, while an airstrike on Beirut that killed much of the leadership of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force showed how Israel’s intelligence capabilities continue to expose the group’s top operatives.

The US has been pushing for a diplomatic solution that would have Hezbollah agree to voluntarily move its force several kilometres off the Israeli border and back towards a line agreed to after their 2006 war. That agreement is enforced by UN peacekeepers, who have been unable to keep Hezbollah out.

Israeli officials said those talks were hitting a dead end, and time was running out to find a solution other than war to stop Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks.

The drumbeat of stepped-up strikes are part of what Israeli officials say is a new approach to its nearly year-long conflict with Hezbollah, fought initially in the background of Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza but increasingly taking centre stage.

Tens of thousands of civilians on either side of the border have been displaced by the fighting.

Israel’s government is coming under increased pressure to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and let some 60,000 residents evacuated from the north return to their homes, a situation Israel sees as a loss of sovereignty.

Israeli officials have been cautious about declaring open war on Hezbollah, but striking at senior Hezbollah leadership in the heart of their stronghold in Beirut – the Dahiyeh neighbourhood – was intended to send the message that Israel doesn’t see such escalatory action as a red line, an Israeli official said on Saturday.

Until now, Israel and Hezbollah have fought by informal rules that lay out where the two foes can attack, which types of weapons they can use, and whether civilians or combatants are killed.

Strikes on Dahiyeh go beyond these so-called rules of the game.

“If Nasrallah escalates, then the price he’ll pay in Dahiyeh in Beirut will be very high,” the official said, referring to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel won’t hold back from striking again at Hezbollah’s nerve centre, the official said.

Israel’s strategic shift is geared towards shaking up a cross-border conflict that has been costly to both sides but has no clear diplomatic off ramp.

Hezbollah has pledged to continue attacking Israel until the fighting ends in Gaza, but ceasefire talks have been fruitless for months and are currently stalled.

Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border shortly after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks that sparked the war in Gaza.

Israel had sought to avoid a war while the fighting in Gaza was in full swing, and its troops were exhausted by the fighting, but as ­activity on that front has wound down, Israel has been pushing the envelope in the north, Israeli military officials and regional analysts said.

About 8500 projectiles have been fired into Israel from Lebanon since the start of the conflict, according to the Israeli military. In the same period, Israel has attacked more than 7600 sites in Lebanon, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based, non-profit monitoring service, and the Institute for National Security Studies.

In a sign of seriousness, Israel last week said it was moving its 98th Division of paratroopers and commandos from Gaza to its northern border. That came shortly after forces already deployed in the north completed exercises simulating combat in Lebanon. Several reservists received calls in recent days with orders to report for duty in the north.

Nasrallah warned on Thursday that if Israel were to invade Lebanon, it would be bogged down in the fighting.

Reflecting the rise in tensions, the Pentagon at the weekend said the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman would head to the eastern Mediterranean on Monday. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group is already in the region.

Senior US military officials say that Israel could soon launch a ground war in Lebanon.

The Wall Street Journal