Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to President Biden, met Tuesday with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut, where he pressed for a diplomatic solution as increasingly deadly skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia. , they did the situation in Israel. Lebanon’s borders are dangerously unstable.
For the past eight months, as the war has raged in Gaza, another battle has erupted along Israel’s northern border. During that time, Hezbollah, a well-armed and tested fighting force, and the Israeli military played a dangerous game of passions, carrying out muscle-flexing attacks but avoiding full-scale war. Despite the seemingly measured approach taken by the sides, civilians in both countries have been killed and more than 150,000 people have been displaced from their homes along the border.
Since October, more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and about 80 Lebanese civilians have been killed, while at least 19 Israeli soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
As the fighting has intensified, any miscalculation risks dragging both sides into a wider escalation. Given Hezbollah’s strength as a fighting force, a full-scale war between Israel and the group could destroy both countries.
“The situation is serious,” Mr Hochstein told reporters in Beirut. “We’ve seen an escalation in recent weeks, and what President Biden wants to do is avoid a further escalation into a bigger war.”
“It will take everyone’s interest to end this conflict now, and we believe there is a way, diplomatically, to do it – if the sides agree to it,” he said.
During his stay in Beirut, Mr. Hochstein will not meet with the leaders of Hezbollah, which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization. Instead, he will meet only with members of the Lebanese government, whose influence on the group is limited.
Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force, is much stronger and better armed than it was when it last went to war with Israel in 2006. Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian militia fighting the Israel In Gaza, Hezbollah’s troops are highly trained fighters, and the group possesses long-range, precision-guided missiles that can hit targets deep inside Israel. In Israel, military planners see the specter of the October 7 Hamas attack — in which Palestinian gunmen flooded the supposedly well-protected Gaza barrier — hanging over their northern border. But worryingly, a similar attack carried out by Hezbollah would involve the group’s elite units.
Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli general, said the sheer number of munitions in Hezbollah’s arsenal – particularly its cache of drones – could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses in the event of a full-scale war.
Hezbollah fighters are also hardened by their experience in the Syrian civil war, where they intervened on the side of the Assad regime, which is also backed by Iran, General Brohm said.
“In an unrestricted war, there will be more destruction both on the civilian home front and deeper inside Israel,” said General Brom, a former top military planner. “They have the ability to target more or less anywhere in Israel, and they will target political targets, just as we will target southern Beirut,” he said, referring to districts of the capital known to be Hezbollah strongholds.
For Hezbollah, a major escalation is equally worrying. Lebanon’s economy was in shambles even before the current crisis, and many Lebanese do not want a rematch of the 2006 war, a month-long battle that killed more than 1,000 Lebanese and 165 Israelis and displaced more than a million people.
The current fighting began shortly after October 7, when Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, launched strikes in northern Israel in a show of solidarity. Israel retaliated soon after.
Last week, an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Taleb Abdullah, prompting Hezbollah to step up its attacks on Israel in retaliation. In the following days, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel in coordinated strikes, injuring scores of soldiers and civilians.
Mr Hochstein, the US envoy, is in the region this week hoping to ease tensions between the sides. On Monday, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the country’s president and defense minister, in an effort to push for a diplomatic solution.
Despite the risks, Mr Netanyahu has faced growing pressure at home to step up the country’s military campaign against Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of Israelis from border communities remain scattered across the country with no timetable for returning to their homes. And far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have called for more muscle, including the creation of a “safe zone” under Israeli responsibility inside Lebanese soil.
