Why Israel is stepping up strikes on Hezbollah
The attack, which killed Haytham Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s military chief-of-staff, sends not just a message to Hezbollah, but also to the Lebanese government that it must do more to honour its promise to disarm the Iranian-backed terror proxy.
For months now Arab and Israeli intelligence have reported that Hezbollah has been defying the terms of the year-long ceasefire by quietly trying to rebuild its armaments and recruit fighters.
At the same time, the Lebanese military and the government have baulked at carrying out their promise to disarm Hezbollah. The poorly resourced Lebanese army is reluctant to disarm Hezbollah fighters by force for fear of triggering violence or even another civil war.
Hezbollah commanders, who initially agreed to disarm its fighters in the south of the country, are increasingly refusing to give up its weapons, claiming that they are needed to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty. This is especially the case in Hezbollah strongholds around Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.
This recent trend has punctured the initial optimism a year ago that the Lebanese government and the country’s military would be able to exercise more control over the terror group after it was smashed by Israel’s ground invasion and its targeted assassination of the group’s leaders.
Israel, by lifting the intensity of its strikes on Hezbollah and other militants in Lebanon in recent weeks, is sending a warning to all parties that it is willing to go to war again rather than see Hezbollah get back on its feet.
As Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Under my leadership, the State of Israel will not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power, and we will not allow it to once again pose a threat to the State of Israel.”
He added that he expected the Lebanese government “to fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah”.
Hezbollah was decimated by Israel’s campaign against it last year, which included exploding pagers and walkie talkies and the assassination of long time Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The group was forced to agree to a ceasefire, ending Hezbollah’s almost daily rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel, which commenced in solidarity with Hamas after the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
But in recent months, Hezbollah has been quietly restocking its rockets, artillery and anti-tank missiles. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria had slowed the flow of weapons to Hezbollah from Iran but the group is still receiving weapons from seaports.
Hezbollah remains wary of retaliating against Israel’s attack, partly because it is still greatly weakened and partly because it knows Israel would likely use such an attack to resume a broad offensive against the group.
Having won such a major strategic victory against Hezbollah, Israel is unwilling to sit by and watch the terrorists slowly rearm and one day pose a renewed threat to the country. By assassinating such a senior Hezbollah leader Israel is also sending a message that its intelligence is still good enough to kill the group’s leaders. But Israel needs to calibrate its attacks on Hezbollah to ensure they are targeted and that they do not risk causing heavy civilian casualties and potentially derailing the ceasefire itself.
By trying to quietly rearm itself, Hezbollah is once again proving to be the enemy of the Lebanese people because such a path can only lead to conflict with Israel. No one, least of all Hezbollah, should be surprised that Israel will do whatever it takes to prevent the rebirth of the group.
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The assassination of a key Hezbollah leader is a blunt warning from Israel that it won’t tolerate the growing push by the terror group to rearm itself.