Israel approaching full-scale conflict with Hezbollah as tensions rise – analysis

Right now is the closest Israel has been to a full war with Hezbollah since October 7.

This is true even in comparison to the period between July 30 and August 25, probably the second most dangerous period between the sides.

How do we know that the coming days, weeks, and months or two before the coming winter are so potentially explosive?

It is not just the statement that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued on Monday about his talk with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in which he said that the possibility for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in the North is running out.

It is not just the rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to replace Gallant with Gideon Saar as defense minister in order to have greater support for a major operation against Hezbollah.

It is not even just that Netanyahu’s main political opposition, Benny Gantz, continues to pound the prime minister as being too scared to risk a major battle in the North, which has left the 60,000 evacuated northern residents abandoned for nearly a year.

Confidence for major Hezbollah operation

These are the open and obvious signs – and frankly, much of Israel’s political and military class has been threatening to send Hezbollah back to the Stone Age since late early spring 2024.

It is also that the Jerusalem Post has received indications behind the scenes at both the political and military levels from sources who before were pouring cold water on the public statements, who are now signaling that the public statements are serious.

The reasons they give show how realities have changed a lot throughout the war.

For most of the war, the main reason not to get into a big fight with Hezbollah was to avoid distractions that might handicap the IDf from taking apart all 24 of Hamas’s battalions in Gaza.

As of August 21, Gallant declared Hamas’s last battalion in Rafah defeated.

Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that a big war with Hezbollah was not likely going to really happen until now was that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from the expected Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day in the event of such a war.

That seems to have changed as of August 25.

On August 25, Hezbollah planned to launch several hundred and maybe up to 1,000 rockets on Israel, including on critical Israeli intelligence headquarters bases just North of Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu and the war cabinet instructed the IDF not to launch a full preemptive war on Hezbollah because, among other reasons, he was still worried about the impact on the Israeli home front.

However, something changed radically as a result of the events of August 25.

Since October 7, Netanyahu has doubted the IDF in areas where the objective risk was higher, even if the military supposedly would have the upper hand.

Sources have indicated that behind closed doors he was initially hesitant for each of the three invasions of Gaza; northern Gaza in late October, Khan Yunis in December, and Rafah in May.

Yet on August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house.

Despite IDF’s substantive victories over Hamas and small tactical victories against Hezbollah, this was the first time that the IDF won a major and complex strategic victory over Hezbollah during this war.

It blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones Hezbollah intended to attack Israel with before these threats could even be launched.

Hezbollah neither killed nor damaged anyone or anything of significance, while the IDF destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets.

Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence that he can afford a major operation against Hezbollah with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.

What if – instead of 5,000 to 10,000 dead Israelis from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets over several weeks – he could hit Hezbollah harder than it’s ever been hit before – and destroy so many of its rocket launchers on the ground, that Israeli casualties might be not just smaller, but exponentially smaller?

Another factor was until now there was a good chance that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire and that such a deal would lead Hezbollah to unilaterally stop attacking Israel, just as it did during the November 23-30 ceasefire with Hamas.

While this is not impossible, the chances of a ceasefire with Hamas now are lower than they have been in several months after both sides have dug in on various issues after having seemed to have navigated around 90% of the obstacles.

All along, the only other option that has been discussed if diplomacy failed was a major Israeli operation.

And Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah is still furious about the killing of his military chief Fuad Shukr by the IDF on July 30, so no one views him as being more flexible now than in other periods.

Finally, the winter comes into play.

Sources have told the Post that if more than 4-6 weeks pass without an operation, it may be impossible or much harder to carry out such an operation until Spring 2025.

That would mean condemning the northern residents to another 6 months outside of their homes, something becoming increasingly untenable domestically in Israel.

Pressed that the IDF managed a successful invasion of Khan Yunis and the finishing off of Hamas in Shejaia in northern Gaza in the middle of winter 2023-2024, sources responded that the winter in mountainous Lebanon is far more fierce and difficult to manage than in the deserts of Gaza.

None of this means that a new broader war with Hezbollah is certain.

It would still be a massively risky proposition for Israel, Hezbollah, and also for the sides’ sponsors: the US as well as Iran.

The US could be drawn into a regional war or at least be seen as having failed to prevent a larger war after a year of diplomacy, something that could impact the current US presidential election.

Iran could lose Hezbollah as its major potential threat to hold over Israel should the Jewish state dare to think of attacking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. Hezbollah would undoubtedly remain the main player in Lebanon but might lose many of its most feared capabilities.

But this is clearly the riskiest moment in the North since October 7.