2023-10-24 04:00:09
Since the surprise attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Israel on October 7th, the Hezbollah and the Israeli Army clashed on the Israel-Lebanon border.
On Sunday (22), the Israeli Army accused the Lebanese terrorist group of Shiite ethnic origin — the dominant Islamic current in Iran — of provoking a military escalation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah would make “the mistake of its life” if it went to war with his country.
Iran, an ally of Hezbollah and Hamas, warned that the conflict could worsen as a result of the incessant bombings that Israel has launched in the Gaza Strip in response to the attack by Islamic extremists on its territory, which caused more than 1,400 deaths.
Since October 7, violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon has left 40 people dead in Lebanon. Most of the victims are Hezbollah, but there are also four civilians, including a Reuters photographer. Four people died on the Israeli side.
Why does Hezbollah support Hamas?
The day after the attack launched by Hamas against Israel, Hezbollah began bombing Israeli positions from southern Lebanon, to which Israel responded. So far, Hezbollah has carried out only limited attacks.
According to analysts, long before October 7, Hamas and Hezbollah formed a “joint operations room” with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al Qods Force, the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, a source close to it told AFP. to Hezbollah who requested anonymity.
For years, these groups have coordinated their actions with other Palestinian, Syrian and other Iranian-backed formations, forming what these groups say is the “axis of resistance.”
According to analyst Michael Young of the Carnegie Middle East Center, Shiite Hezbollah’s support for Sunni Hamas comes from the fact that they coincide ideologically in their opposition to Israel. Young asserts that the “axis of resistance” has always tried to “highlight that it is not an exclusively Shia structure.”
“Hamas is at the center of the Palestinian issue, which is part of the revolutionary identity of Hezbollah and Iran,” he explained.
What are Hezbollah’s military capabilities?
Hezbollah is the most important political and military force in Lebanon. The Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, estimates its arsenal at between 150,000 and 200,000 rockets and missiles of all types, including “hundreds of precision missiles.”
In 2021, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced that his party had 100,000 trained and armed fighters. The Israeli Institute for Security Studies (INSS) accounts for at least half.
The government in Tehran finances the terrorist group and supplies weapons and equipment through Syria.
Since the 2006 war with Israel, Hezbollah has had no visible military presence on the Lebanese-Israeli border, according to a UN Security Council resolution. However, experts and reports report positions, tunnels and trenches excavated by the group in the region and where its members circulate.
For years, Hassan Nasrallah has repeated that the precision weapons at his party’s disposal are capable of reaching even Ashdod, an Israeli coastal city located north of Gaza.
In mid-August, he declared that his party needed “some high-precision missiles to destroy a list of targets, including airports […]power plants and communications centers, and the Dimona nuclear plant”.
Does Hezbollah want to go to war?
Hassan Nasrallah has not spoken since the Hamas attack on October 7. But the prospect of a likely Israeli ground intervention in Gaza worries the international community, which fears that the conflict will intensify and involve other countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Iran and the United States.
Imad Salameh, from the Lebanese-American University, believes that Hezbollah could intensify its attacks, although he does not want to divert attention from the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
For Michael Young, Hezbollah’s objective is, for now, “to keep Israeli troops far enough away from Gaza.” It could also be aimed at “generating fear of a regional conflagration, which would lead to pressure within the United Nations, and perhaps even the United States, to call for a ceasefire,” he added.
Regarding the possibility of Iran pushing Hezbollah into a direct confrontation with Israel, Salameh and Young declared themselves convinced that the country “will not sacrifice” the terrorist group.
Bunker, kibbutz and Hezbollah: understand the terms used in the war between Israel and Hamas
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