What’s happening between Hezbollah and Israel? The latest confrontation, explained

The violence has raised fears of another devastating conflict between the two sides (EPA)

It was one of the most serious clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in years.

What began with an airstrike in Syria spiralled into a series of escalating events: a drone attack in the Lebanese capital and a clash on the border, dozens of rounds of artillery.

The violence has raised fears of another devastating conflict between the two sides. But both sides are treading extremely carefully.

1. What’s happening between Hezbollah and Israel?

   The last few weeks have seen a significant increase in hostilities between the two bitter enemies. Minor skirmishes are not unusual, but this round of clashes was the most serious in years.

   The recent trouble began when Israel launched an airstrike that killed two Hezbollah members in Syria. The Israeli military said Hassan Zabeeb and Yasser Daher were Lebanese nationals trained by the Iranian military to operate attack drones, and that the attack thwarted their plan to launch them into Israel.

   That strike was quickly followed by an Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut — the first time it has done so since the two sides fought a devastating war in 2006. Hezbollah said that an Israeli drone crashed into the roof of its media office in the Dahiya neighbourhood, while another exploded nearby.

   Both of the drones were armed with explosives and it was later reported that the operation had targeted a piece of machinery that is used to manufacture fuel for Hezbollah’s missile programme.

   Hezbollah responded a few days later by firing anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military patrol on the Lebanon-Israel border. No soldiers were killed in the attack, but the Israeli military retaliated by firing around 100 artillery shells towards the source of the missiles in the Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, and ordered residents near the border to remain inside. ​

2. What is behind the recent clashes?

   For more than a decade Hezbollah and Israel have maintained an uneasy peace on the border that separates them, based on the understanding that another round of conflict would be extremely damaging to them both.

   The Syrian civil war changed the equation. Hezbollah intervened in the conflict to protect its ally Bashar al-Assad — who has been a key supporter of the group — and his country’s role as a conduit for the supply of weapons to Lebanon from Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran.

   Over time, Iran has used its growing footprint in Syria to facilitate the transfer of more sophisticated missiles to Hezbollah. Israel has grown concerned that the enormous military advantage it holds over the Lebanese group could be weakened if it were able to use those missiles to target Israeli cities in a future conflict.

   The strikes against Hezbollah members in Syria and the attack in Dahiya were both aimed at damaging what it says are Hezbollah’s attempts to build this more advanced missile system in Lebanon.

   But the broader issue is that Israel and Iran both see each other as an existential threat. Israel has repeatedly threatened military action against Iran to stop it building a nuclear weapon. Iran, meanwhile, has used the threat of an Israeli attack as a justification for its own military maneuvers in the region, including the military backing of Hezbollah.

   The tensions between Israel and Iran were exacerbated by the US pulling out of the landmark nuclear deal which most countries believed had succeeded in preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

3. Are Israel and Hezbollah about to go to war?

   One of the curiosities of the Hezbollah - Israel conflict is that both operate within certain unspoken “red lines” — that is, both sides are aware of what kind of action would provoke a wider conflict.

   That was a lesson that was learned the hard way in 2006, the last time the two fought. The war was sparked when Hezbollah launched a surprise cross-border raid to kidnap two Israeli soldiers. It had hoped to use the soldiers to pressure Israel to release Lebanese prisoners, but instead it prompted a fierce Israeli invasion that led to the deaths of nearly 1,000 Lebanese civilians. Forty-four Israeli civilians were also killed by Hezbollah rockets.

   The spark for that war was a miscalculation on the part of Hezbollah of where the red lines were. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has said publicly that he did not believe the operation would provoke the reaction it did, and would not have carried it out if he had.

   Since then, both sides have been careful to not make another mistake that would lead to war. The incidents of the last few weeks have certainly tested those parameters, but they have not been so transformed as to make war an immediate possibility.

   Israel has carried out a number of attacks against Hezbollah targets in Syria to stop the transfer of weapons. And Hezbollah’s responses to those attacks have until now come from inside Syria, too — against targets in the Golan Heights.

   What made the clashes of the last two weeks different was that the strike that killed two Hezbollah operatives in Syria and the drone attack in Beirut were, in the eyes of Hezbollah, beyond those agreed red lines.

   But even so, Hezbollah’s response was carefully calculated in order not to spark a war. Although the attack targeted the Israeli military on the Lebanon border — a rare occurrence — it was a limited attack. Hezbollah could have struck any number of high value targets, but instead chose a single Israeli military vehicle.

   We may not have seen the end of these clashes. Hezbollah has promised to shoot down Israeli drones operating in the sky above Lebanon in the future, but even if it did, it would be doing so with the assumption that Israel would not escalate further.

4. What is Hezbollah and what is its current role in Lebanon?

   Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia movement that was founded in the 1980s with the primary aim of ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. It was set up with the help of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and pledged its loyalty to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

   In its early years the group positioned itself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, and a voice for the largely impoverished Shia population of Lebanon.

   Throughout Lebanon’s civil war it used terrorism to achieve its aims, including kidnappings and bombings. When the civil war ended, Hezbollah continued its guerilla campaign against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, until Israeli troops eventually withdrew in 2000.

   Hezbollah was the only militia not to disarm after the civil war, and has used its military strength to impose its will in Lebanon. The group’s military wing is believed to be more powerful than Lebanon’s national army, and is considered a terror group by the US and the UK.

   But Hezbollah is not just a military organisation, it is a major political and social force that commands significant support in Lebanon, and holds seats in government. Hezbollah and its political allies won just over half the seats in parliament in Lebanon’s 2018 elections.

   Hezbollah also maintains a massive social security system for its followers, playing a role in healthcare and education. It’s outsized role in the functions usually reserved for the national government has led to it being called a “state within a state”.

5. What will happen now?

   The current round of fighting will fizzle out, but what remains uncertain is how far Israel is willing to go to strike at Hezbollah’s missile systems.

   Hezbollah’s response to the recent attacks was aimed at reimposing a deterrence for future Israeli attacks against it. But the Israeli government is increasingly making the case for further strikes at Hezbollah’s missile programme, wherever it sees fit.

   In the past week the Israeli military has published the names of three senior Iranian officers whom it says are in charge of building the missile programme in Lebanon. And on Wednesday it shared satellite images of what it sas is a precision-missile factory in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

   All of this suggests that Israel is at least considering further action inside Lebanon. In such a scenario, Hezbollah would almost certainly respond in kind.

   Nasrallah has also signalled that the retaliation may not be over, promising to shoot down Israeli drones operating above Lebanon.

   Israel has said it would not spare any part of Lebanon in a future conflict. And Hezbollah has in its possession thousands of rockets capable of hitting deep inside Israel.

   All of which makes the stakes of testing these “red lines” extremely high.