Israel has been expecting a major attack by Hezbollah for weeks in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in Lebanon in late July.
The attack finally took place in the early hours of Sunday morning, and Israel was clearly well prepared. It claimed to have thwarted a major Hezbollah attack, while at the same time Hezbollah claimed success.
So what can we understand from the latest exchange between the two sides, and where does the region go from here?
Notably, both Israel and Hezbollah have backed away from further action at this stage, with Hezbollah qualifying this by saying this is only the first phase of its response to Shukr's assassination and that it reserves the right to launch further attacks after assessing the success of Sunday's operation.
Israel claimed to have seen preparations for some 1,000 rockets to be fired across the border and sent about 100 aircraft into southern Lebanon in a pre-emptive strike, striking 270 targets, including rocket launchers. In the event of all-out war, Hezbollah is thought to be able to fire 3,000 missiles a day.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the operation a success but said it was not the end and that Israel would launch further attacks if necessary.
Hezbollah denies that the Israeli attacks caused any significant damage, claiming it simply fired into an “empty valley”.
At the same time, Hezbollah retaliated by firing a large number of Katyusha rockets at northern Israel. These are not the largest rockets in Hezbollah's arsenal and have a limited range of 40 km, so they can only hit targets in northern Israel. Hezbollah said the rockets were intended to pave the way for a volley of drones into Israel. One Israeli navy sailor was killed in the attack.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared to apologize in a video address on Sunday (August 25) for putting the Lebanese people in this position, which is perhaps not surprising, since Hezbollah is a political and military actor that still needs to win votes in the Lebanese political system.
But Nasrallah said Hezbollah was achieving its objectives and that the group was encouraging Lebanese who had left the border to return, though it may be a bit premature as it remains to be seen how this will play out.
What is Iran thinking?
Many analysts had assumed there might be coordinated retaliatory attacks for both Shukr's killing in Beirut and the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, potentially including missiles and rockets from Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah and possibly even Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shiite militant groups in Syria and Iraq.
But that didn't happen, and that could mean a few things.
First, Iran is likely still trying to figure out how to best respond to Haniyeh's killing. In April, it launched more than 300 missiles, drones and rockets at Israel in retaliation for the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus that killed several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, but virtually all were shot down without any serious damage.
A repeat of this would demonstrate that Iran does not actually have the capacity to take serious action against Israel.
At the same time, Iran would not want to launch a larger retaliatory attack that could spark a wider war, and it would not want to give the United States or Israel a pretext for a coordinated attack on its nuclear facilities.
That means Iran is likely trying to find a middle ground between its April attacks and a somewhat stronger response, which is clearly taking time.
It may also be a sign of ongoing debates within Iran between those around the new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, who is known (from an Iranian perspective) as a moderate, and the Revolutionary Guard, which has been threatening for some time to take a very hard-line stance against Israel.
Iran may have simply decided to only deal with Israel through its proxies, and at this stage, limited attacks by Hezbollah and the Houthis are all it is prepared to do, but this does not mean the danger is over, since between such hostile adversaries there is always room for misinterpretation of messages.
Netanyahu under pressure
Netanyahu also faces continuing pressure from the right wing of his cabinet, which has long advocated eliminating the Hezbollah threat on Israel's northern border, a Herculean task — Israel tried once in 2006 but essentially failed.
Additionally, some 60,000 Israelis have fled their homes in northern Israel and are living in temporary housing due to threats from Hezbollah, and they are calling on Netanyahu to make it safer for them to return.
It will be difficult for Israel to continue responding to a military threat on two fronts: Israeli forces are currently battling Hamas in Gaza and, to some extent, have been defending northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks for nearly 11 months.
Israel's standing army is also not particularly large: only about 169,000 troops and it must rely on up to 300,000 reserve troops to meet its current needs.
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The problem with bringing reservists back into the military is that it will impact the economy as they will be out of work. In the past few weeks alone, Fitch Ratings has downgraded Israel's credit rating from A to A-, reflecting rising geopolitical risks as well as the fact that the economy is not performing as expected. The country is in a constant state of war and the military wants a break.
But Netanyahu is wary of any pause in the fighting because it could destabilize his coalition government and trigger elections that he would likely lose.
His strategy since the Hamas attack on October 7 has been to re-establish his security capabilities. To regain public trust, he needs to demonstrate that he can counter any threat to Israel. To do that, he must re-establish the trust of the people of northern Israel and thwart Hezbollah attacks.
This situation may continue for a while, but Hezbollah has also stated that it will stop its attacks if a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza. In that sense, we are in a vicious cycle that will not stop until there is a breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
And given the obstacles that remain on both sides, it's hard to see that happening anytime soon.
Ian Parmeter is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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