The next Israel-Hezbollah war is now unavoidable – and it will be worse

Russia Today

10-02-2025

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.
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.
Understanding what shaped the Lebanon-Israel war
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
413 Palestinians were killed
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.
After Israel conducted airstrikes in southern Lebanon and
killed four Hezbollah members
, 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
'complete siege'
on Gaza and that
'
we are fighting against human animals
'
to justify blocking all food, water, and electricity from entering the territory.
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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
'Hamas will win,'
offering no other red lines.
From October 8, 2023 to September 20, 2024, Israel was
responsible for around 81% of all attacks between both sides
, 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.
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.
In 2019, however, the Israelis began working on a
new security fence/wall along the Lebanese border
, 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.
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.
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.
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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.
Why war is inevitable
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.
As early as October 8, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was
threatening Lebanon with the kind of destruction wrought on Gaza
. 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.
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.
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.
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Bloodshed and a hope for peace: What does 2025 hold for Israel and the Middle East?
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.
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.
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.
Netanyahu is now bragging about changing the map of the surrounding region, while his new army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, recently declared
'
2025 will continue to be a year of combat
.'
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.