How Israel and Hezbollah stepped back from the brink of all-out war

Inside a destroyed home after rockets fired from Lebanon struck in Katzrin on Wednesday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Photo / Heidi Levine for The Washington Post

For 26 days after an Israeli missile slammed into a seventh-floor apartment in south Beirut and killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Israel and the region had braced for the group to strike back.

Airlines suspended flights, residents of Tel Aviv and Beirut stockpiled water and diplomats raced to head off an all-out war.

Now, after a dramatic but short-lived exchange of rockets, missiles and drones shook the border zone early on Sunday, many in the region have dared to ask: was that it?

Officials and analysts on Monday mostly said yes, believing the potentially disastrous attacks were, instead, a face-saving moment – allowing each of the combatants to step back from the edge of a wider conflict. The limited morning escalation – albeit the largest since the two sides began trading fire in October – has allowed Hezbollah to claim vengeance and Israel to project confidence in its security apparatus.

“Both [Hezbollah and Israel] are pleased with the results, which makes a descent into full-blown war less likely,” said a senior Middle Eastern diplomat familiar with regional discussions. Like others in this story, he spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

The calibrated response from both sides by no means cleared the board of regional threats. A deadly status quo remains in place, with Hezbollah and Israel immediately returning to lower-intensity cross-border exchanges. Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced from both sides of the border. The war in Gaza rages on.

And all parties are still waiting for Iran’s expected retaliation for the brazen July assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Israel declined to comment publicly on the operation but told Washington immediately afterward that it was responsible, US officials said.

But Sunday’s narrow actions, in which both sides stuck to military targets and casualties were limited to three militant fighters in Lebanon and one Israeli soldier, were a source of palpable relief across the Middle East. Talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, which were already moving slowly and might have been derailed entirely by a major escalation, were carrying on, negotiators said.

“If this was the entirety of Hezbollah’s response, it’s the latest demonstration that the group will seek to avoid escalation with Israel at all costs,” said Harrison Mann, a former Middle East analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Nadia Hashmar, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, looks out from her apartment in Haifa, Israel, on Sunday. Photo / Heidi Levine for The Washington Post

Hezbollah characterised its attacks on Sunday as a victory and denied Israel’s assertion that it had destroyed most of the group’s arsenal before it could be launched. Israel, in turn, rebutted Hezbollah claims that Katyusha rockets had damaged military and intelligence facilities, although Israeli officials did not seem eager to make too loud a point of it.

“That’s something that Hezbollah and Israel share today: They are both happy,” an Israeli official told The Washington Post. “They can say they attacked and claim to have hit key military posts, and Israel can say it prevented a larger attack and protected civilians.”

It was an assessment echoed by the senior Middle Eastern diplomat, who said both sides got enough to satisfy their “public relations management”.

Netanyahu needed to reassure voters he was attuned to the situation in the north, the diplomat explained, while Hezbollah needed a public show of retaliation for last month’s assassination of Fuad Shukr, a commander close to Hasan Nasrallah, the group’s leader. Israel blamed Shukr for a rocket attack last month that killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights; Hezbollah denied responsibility.

Nasrallah said in an address after Sunday’s attacks his fighters had showcased their ability to strike a blow deep within Israel, claiming that a barrage of more than 350 Katyusha rockets and drones wreaked havoc on Israeli military facilities.

Israel on Monday denied that any of its bases were hit and said most of the weapons fired from Lebanon were intercepted by air defence systems or landed harmlessly. Even more were destroyed in pre-emptive predawn strikes by more than 100 aircraft, the military said. The sole Israeli casualty was a sailor killed by shrapnel from an air-defence interceptor missile, officials said.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah reserved the right to respond further, but seemed to draw a line under the episode. Lebanon, he said, “can breathe a sigh of relief”.

A Lebanese individual close to Hezbollah said the group would continue to evaluate the results of the attack but was prepared to go back to its role as a “support front”, keeping up pressure on Israel in the north as long as it continues its war on Hamas in Gaza.

“We are back to the routine operations which started on October 8th,” the individual close to Hezbollah said, referring to the first volleys of rockets launched by the militant group the day after the Hamas attacks on Israel.

The excruciating three-week wait for Hezbollah’s expected strikes, which caused anxiety to spike among civilians on both sides of the border, allowed Israel to be better prepared, according to the Israeli official. The IDF had a chance to game out multiple attack scenarios and gather enough intelligence to be aware of the impending launch on Sunday morning.

But analysts said the risk of a broader regional war had only been deferred, not averted, and would remain highly dependent on the progress of Gaza cease-fire talks. Even if Hezbollah is signalling satisfaction for now, its patron Iran remains a wild card.

Washington was not involved in Israel’s pre-emptive strikes on Sunday, a US defence official told The Post, but did provide support to Israel in tracking incoming fire from Hezbollah, and continues to monitor the situation. Mann said the Biden administration cannot afford to be complacent.

“Every day they prolong the war in Gaza and promise Israel unconditional military support, both against Hamas and against Hezbollah, they are rolling the dice that Netanyahu’s next escalatory move won’t lead to the full-scale war they hope to avoid,” he said.

In April, Israel and Iran clashed in a series of contained strikes and reprisals that played out very much like Sunday’s exchange with Hezbollah: Israel launched a deadly strike near an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus. Tehran let loose an unprecedented barrage of missiles and drones, but telegraphed its plans so clearly that Israel and a coalition of allies were able to shoot down most of the projectiles. The matter seemed closed.

The July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh placed Tehran in a new bind that it has wrestled with for weeks, compelled to respond but fearful of provoking a devastating war. The country’s new leadership is already struggling with domestic turmoil and an economic collapse.

“Iran will likely retaliate one way or another – to what extent and when is unclear – but obviously the hope is that progress on [Gaza] talks leads to de-escalation,” a second Middle Eastern official told The Post.

In the immediate aftermath of the back-to-back assassinations in Tehran and Beirut, some had anticipated that Iran and Hezbollah would respond in a co-ordinated fashion. Now, that appears less likely, analysts said.

Nasrallah said on Sunday that Hezbollah’s own action was delayed, in part, because the group had been co-ordinating with Iran and other allied militant groups, ultimately choosing to act independently.

“Each different player will decide” how to respond, Nasrallah said.

In Iran, officials cast Hezbollah’s attack as a success, continuing to vow their own response while remaining vague on timing.

“We do not fear escalation, yet do not seek it – unlike Israel,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi said in a statement on Sunday following a call with his Italian counterpart.

Iran’s retaliation will be “definitive” and “measured”, he said.