The music is dramatic. Like in a US thriller, the target in northern Israel is focused on a digital map, accompanied by a beeping sound. Then you see the image from the drone camera, a missile battery coming closer and closer. Then just smoke. If the video from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia on Thursday is authentic, then it shows the first destruction of a facility of the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system by a Hezbollah drone. It would be the document of an escalation that makes the risk of the Gaza war spreading to the region higher today than at any time since the first days of the conflict.
So far, the world has been riveted on the Gaza Strip in southern Israel. But in Israel itself, a debate is coming to a head about expanding the war against the Shiite Hezbollah in the Jewish state’s northern neighbor. “We are ready for an extremely powerful action in the north,” wrote Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X after a special meeting of the war cabinet.
Chief of General Staff Herzl Halevi commented on the situation in the north with the words: “Strong defense, readiness for an offensive – we are approaching the moment of decision.” This was preceded by Hezbollah drone and rocket attacks against the town of Hurfesh in northern Israel, in which eleven people died, and further attacks that sparked large forest fires in the area of the town of Kiriat Shmonah.
And that drone attack on the air defense position at Ramot Naftali. These are attacks of a new quality. In recent months, the exchange of blows between Israel and Hezbollah seemed to have a symbolic character for a long time.
Even when Israel began to liquidate Hezbollah commanders from the air and eventually killed high-ranking commanders of the Hezbollah-allied Iranian Revolutionary Guard in a strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran responded with a major attack, but Hezbollah continued to hold back.
Now, however, Israeli population centers are increasingly being targeted by the Lebanese militia. Like the strike against the Iron Dome battery, they show that Israel is surprisingly vulnerable in the north. “Hezbollah is more effective than we thought,” says a high-ranking source from Israel’s military strategic analysis apparatus.
“This encourages parts of the General Staff to feel the need to restore deterrence capability in the north. At the moment, all options are on the table, including a ground war. The debates are currently very intense.”
According to media reports, Israel’s Defense Minister Joav Gallant had already called for action against the terrorist militia Hamas’ stronghold in the Gaza Strip immediately after the attack on October 7, but also for a war against Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas. The US’s intervention prevented this at the last minute. It is not without reason that Washington fears that a war with Hezbollah could escalate into a major conflict in the region.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah is allied with Iran, but it is far more important to the clerical leadership in Tehran. With its arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and cruise missiles, Hezbollah can put severe pressure on Israel’s missile defenses and inflict heavy casualties among the Israeli civilian population.
Ultimately, this arsenal is also the Iranian leadership’s best life insurance. Iran’s own missiles are stationed too far away to be detected and intercepted by Israeli systems. The Iranian air force has been so depleted by decades of technology sanctions that it hardly represents effective protection.
If Iran loses Hezbollah’s missiles, it will be largely defenseless. And as with the Israeli general staff, the same applies to the Iranian leadership: the impression of weakness increases the pressure to strike preemptively.
Therefore, a war against Hezbollah could lead to Tehran itself intervening against Israel and having allied militias in other countries in the region attack Israel and its Western and Arab allies, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen or the Kataib Hezbollah and other Shiite militias in Iraq. It would be the Armageddon that the region has feared for years.
Behind the scenes, the US is currently doing everything it can to prevent Israel from launching a major counterattack, writes journalist Barak Ravid in the news portal Axios. Even a limited war against Hezbollah could tempt Iran to intervene, US officials warned. But there are also doubts in the Israeli general staff about whether an escalation can be controlled. It could cost countless Israeli lives. “You have to understand that before you make a decision,” Ravid quoted an Israeli military officer as saying.