At a time when Washington seems to be seeking a diplomatic way out of the US-Israeli war against Iran, Israel appears determined to continue and intensify its military operations in Lebanon against the Shiite group Hezbollah, an ally of Iran.

“The issue of dismantling Hezbollah remains central” and “we are determined to fundamentally change the situation in Lebanon,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last Wednesday night.

“We are conducting operations throughout Lebanon in order to strike Hezbollah and to conclude, at the end of this process, with its disarmament,” Brigadier General Effie Defrin, an Israeli army spokesman, said on Tuesday.

“It’s a very difficult task” and the Israeli army “would like to have more time to deal with Lebanon after a ceasefire with Iran,” opines Orna Mizrahi of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think tank affiliated with the Israeli army.

Lebanon was dragged into war on March 2 when Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in retaliation for the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war.

Since then, Israel has been massively bombing Lebanon and has deployed ground forces to create an “advanced line of defense.”

“We created a real security zone that prevents any infiltration into the Galilee and the northern border (of Israel). We are expanding this zone to remove the threat of anti-tank missiles and create a wider security zone,” Netanyahu pointed out in a video released by his office yesterday.

If it were up to him, Israel “would remain in Lebanon, as it did in Gaza, until it considered the slavery to be complete,” comments the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) Yust Hilterman.

But “in reality it all depends on what Trump does when he decides to end US involvement in the war,” he adds. “Will he tell Israel to do the same or not? And will that apply to both Iran and Lebanon or just Iran?”

According to a poll conducted for INSS after two weeks of war against Iran, a majority of Israelis (48%) estimated that the military campaign against Lebanon would ensure “many years of calm in terms of security” only to a “small or very small extent”.

“Rational calculation”

Israel insists that the Shiite movement should have withdrawn from southern Lebanon under the terms of the ceasefire agreement that came into force at the end of November 2024. At the same time, it accuses the Lebanese government of failing to keep its commitment to disarm Hezbollah and has consistently stated that it will undertake this task itself.

As of March 2, more than 1.000 people have been killed in Lebanon since March, according to Lebanese authorities, while hundreds of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes in the south of the country under pressure from evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army and bombing.

Mizrahi believes that the disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be achieved “solely by military means.”

“Eventually an agreement will be needed,” he notes. But according to Hilterman, Netanyahu may be tempted to prolong the current military operation in order to improve his image ahead of elections expected to be held in Israel by the end of October.

“His calculation is quite different from what (…) would be the rational calculation of security officials,”

According to several Israeli media outlets, the government could decide in the coming days to mobilize a total of 400.000 reservists by the end of May, in preparation for a large-scale military offensive in Lebanon.

.

For its part, Hezbollah yesterday rejected any “under-fire” negotiations with Israel.

In a message read to al-Manar TV network which is owned by Hezbollah, the head of the Shiite group Naeem Qassem said that any negotiation “under fire” with Israel would constitute “capitulation” at a time when the Lebanese government is seeking talks.