Hezbollah and Israel: Rules of “disciplined engagement” restored after Sunday’s attack

2024-08-26 18:14:19

Image source, Reuters

Article information

• author, Karen Tarbey
• Role, BBC-Beirut

• 48 minutes ago

A day after Hezbollah responded to Israel’s assassination of its top military commander Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel stated in a press release on Monday that the response “turned the page on Hezbollah’s A page in the conflict with Israel”.

While debate dominated the hours after the dawn attacks by Israel and Hezbollah on Sunday, and continues to do so, both sides appeared to want to turn the page on what once burdened both sides, rather than escalate into Total conflict.

The Israeli military said on Sunday its aircraft preemptively bombed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon following news that the group was preparing to launch an attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah confirmed that its forces subsequently fired hundreds of missiles and drones into Israel in an “initial” response to the assassination of a senior leader last month, indicating that the group planned to launch a very close attack on Israel. The operation to Tel Aviv targeting the Glilot base was not thwarted as Israel claimed.

Sunday’s attack between Hezbollah and Israel came within the framework of a sharp escalation that has lasted ten months, with almost daily cross-border exchanges of fire, raising fears of an all-out war between the two sides.

Where is the truth?

“These issues in politics have nothing to do with facts,” the doctor said. Joseph Bahout is director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

“What is important is that Hezbollah believes it has seized its rights and that Israel knows that the party has the ability to march on Tel Aviv regardless of whether it is attacked or not,” Bahout said.

“It’s in the interest of both parties to remain silent about what actually happened and to say they got what they wanted,” Bahout said.

Controversy over the narrative centers on the assessment of the Hezbollah attack. While its supporters considered the operation strategically important and had a significant impact on the party’s military capabilities, its opponents underestimated the attack and even believed it had no impact at all.

Image source, Reuters

The long wait for Hezbollah’s response to Shouk’s killing showed signs of unease among the party’s fans and is beginning to be exploited by opponents to damage its image.

“The party solved the problem in the best possible way,” Bahout said.

But what happened on Sunday, despite differing accounts and assessments, has put renewed focus on the main front between Hezbollah and Israel, which for more than a dozen months has been marked by “specific and controlled” rules of engagement.

The United States, Britain, the West and Arab countries label Hezbollah a “terrorist organization,” while successive Lebanese governments consider it “legitimate resistance to Israel,” which, according to the United Nations, still occupies Lebanese territory.

for how long?

As time passed, the front’s discipline was tested and its rules of engagement became more fragile.

This is probably the most dangerous thing in the medium term, and the question in the background of everything that is happening is what will the border area look like after the “war of support”, those armed operations from southern Lebanon against northern Israel, which Hezbollah calls “Gaza” Support” front.

What is meant here is a nature and form of security control over the area that satisfies Hezbollah and reassures Israel, thereby facilitating the return of the 60,000 residents of the north who have been displaced by the ongoing war there and the displaced people on the Lebanese side The number of people exceeds 110,000.

While Lebanese officials say they will abide by UN Resolution 1701, which ended the July 2006 war and was the framework in effect in southern Lebanon before the Gaza war began, Israel says it will not accept a return to pre-October 8 past.

However, observers say the thorny issue has been postponed for the time being as the focus is now on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza as the first stage of a solution and preventing a significant escalation leading to an all-out war.

In this context, what happened yesterday may indicate that neither party wants a “total war”, which may also apply to the calculations of the Iranian response and the Houthi response.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatens Israel after Shuk’s assassination, saying: “Israel has crossed all red lines and the resistance movement’s response to the Dahiya attack and the assassination of Fouad Shuk is Of course.

Bahout explained: “If Netanyahu had the intention and the will, he could have used Sunday’s attack as a reason or an excuse to start a war, but it is clear that all parties – the United States, Iran, Hezbollah and Israel -Everyone is afraid of total war.

Shook was killed in an Israeli attack in a southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah has strong influence, and Israel claimed responsibility for his killing. Less than 24 hours later, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed at his residence in Tehran, with Iran and Hamas accusing Israel of assassinating him, although Israel did not claim responsibility for the operation.

As for the impact of Sunday’s events on Hezbollah’s ability to restore the balance of deterrence it lost following Israel’s assassination of Lashkar-e-Taiba outside the war zone, that still depends on Israel’s repeated attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which, if that happens, could then amount to having New chapter with new calculations and analyses.

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