On Saturday, July 27, a rocket struck a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children. The Israeli government attributed the attack to Hezbollah and, despite U.S. warnings to avoid the Lebanese capital—carried out a strike on Tuesday in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. Early in the morning on July 31, Israel carried out a strike on Iranian soil, killing the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. These developments underscore the precarious situation on Israel’s border with Lebanon and the risk of Iran and Israel entering into a wider war in the Middle East. Even carefully calibrated escalations risk spiraling out of control. U.S. officials must take urgent action to avoid wider conflict, including continued efforts toward an immediate ceasefire in the short term and steps to bolster Lebanon’s state institutions as an alternative to Hezbollah in the long term.
In the hours and days following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, the world watched on tenterhooks to see how Iran’s other regional proxies—particularly the formidable fighting forces of Hezbollah—would enter the fray. While Hezbollah’s leadership praised the attacks, the Lebanese armed group did not wholly take up Hamas’ calls to engage in all-out war against its Israeli neighbors at the time. But, as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a bloody counteroffensive in Gaza, Hezbollah and the IDF have continued to launch attacks across the Israel-Lebanon border. The tensions have displaced more than 53,000 Israelis and 91,000 Lebanese from the border areas.
More recently, the IDF has suggested that it is ready to carry out a ground offensive to combat Hezbollah on Lebanese territory. On June 25, former defense minister Benny Gantz said that the IDF could take out Hezbollah’s power grid and destroy their military capabilities “within days.” The recent strike in Majdal Shams has only provided more fuel to the fire. In a visit to the town, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The state of Israel will not and cannot let this pass. Our response will come, and it will be harsh.”
At the moment, it appears that Israel is seeking to respond with strikes on key figures in Hamas and Hezbollah rather than a ground offensive. But the Majdal Shams incident, the strikes in the dense urban landscape of Beirut, and a direct attack on Iranian soil highlight the precarious nature of the tensions, where inexact strikes cause devastating loss of life and risk escalatory countermeasures that may spin out of control. An Israeli invasion of Lebanon would depend on several factors—including Iran’s response to Haniyeh’s assassination and external assurances of support for Israel—but one thing is clear: Such an offensive would endure for far longer than mere days. Hezbollah is a much stronger fighting force than Hamas, to the extent that the Center for Strategic and International Studies has described it as “the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor.” Hezbollah is not only better armed than Hamas, but it is also embedded into mountainous terrain—a far more challenging environment than the contained urban areas in Gaza.
The costs of such an escalation would be grave. Should fighting extend to Lebanon’s city centers, the civilian death toll will likely be far higher than any that has been seen in Gaza, as Beirut is a city of 2.4 million people—more than the population of the entirety of Gaza. And a wider escalation would likely reignite tensions with Iranian proxy militias elsewhere in the region—militias that targeted U.S. personnel for months before successful efforts at containment earlier this year.
For months, U.S. officials have engaged in shuttle diplomacy and negotiations at the highest levels to avoid escalation, but officials have also given “assurances” that the United States would support Israel in the event of war with Lebanon. The Majdal Shams disaster and ensuring strikes illustrate, once again, the urgency and necessity of efforts to reach an immediate and durable ceasefire in Gaza, as Hezbollah’s declared motivation in attacks on Israel are to avenge Palestinians in the enclave. Such a ceasefire is critical to dialing down the temperature across the region. However, Israel’s strike on Hamas’ political leader further indicates that Netanyahu has more interest in continuing conflict than achieving peace—Haniyeh had, after all, played a central role in ceasefire negotiations. After months of stalled efforts to reach such a ceasefire, the Biden administration should withhold further shipments of lethal weapons to Israel to increase pressure toward a ceasefire and avoid encouraging escalatory action.
A more enduring strategy for combating Hezbollah and Iran’s influence in the region will require longer-term efforts to target its sources of funding and support through continued sanctions on officials engaged in corruption or individuals involved in illicit weapons or drug trade. But a sanctions-only approach will not work absent a strong Lebanese state better able to deliver for its people than Hezbollah. While Hezbollah is a violent and corrupt political power, it is well-resourced and provides services and protection to many Lebanese. Prior to October 7, Hezbollah had waned in popularity in Lebanon, particularly as investigations revealed its responsibility in the deadly Beirut port explosion. Hezbollah officials tried to quash these investigations, leading to deadly protests. However, the conflict in Gaza has once again placed Hezbollah on a stronger footing, as it has gained support for its so-called “resistance.”
To help efforts toward a democratic and secure Lebanese state and to reduce Hezbollah’s influence, U.S. officials should seek to provide diplomatic and material support for Lebanon’s state institutions—which are chronically underresourced and have suffered further due to the country’s economic crisis—as well as support indigenous reform efforts to address weakness and corruption in these institutions. Of priority, the United States should aid the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in developing a comprehensive national security strategy and should build on the existing security partnership to ensure the LAF has the support it needs to execute such a strategy. These efforts will be critical to ensuring implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which outlines the security arrangements to secure peace at the border between Lebanon and Israel.
Be they Lebanese, Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, or Iranian, the people of the Middle East all equally deserve to live in safety, security, and freedom. Avoiding any further conflict and preventing future conflict is an urgent mandate for the United States and its partners in the region.