Can Israel and Hezbollah claim success after weekend attacks? And what might happen next?

For weeks, Israel had been expecting a significant attack by Hezbollah in retaliation for assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon at the top of July.

Early Sunday morning, the attack finally got here – and Israel was clearly ready. The Israelis say thwarted which might have been a large-scale Hezbollah attack. At the identical time, Hezbollah also alleged success.

So how can we assess the most recent exchanges between the 2 sides and where is the region heading?

How either side see things

It is obvious that each Israel and Hezbollah have withdrawn from further motion at this stage. Hezbollah has indicated that this is simply the primary phase of its response to the killing of Shukr and that it reserves the fitting to perform further strikes after assessing the success of Sunday’s operation.

Israel said it saw preparations for the launch of perhaps a thousand rockets across the border and preemptively sent about 100 aircraft to southern Lebanon and struck 270 targets, including rocket launchers. Hezbollah is believed to be able to firing 3000 rockets per day if a full-scale war broke out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the operation a success, but added that it was not the top of the story and that Israel would perform further strikes if mandatory.

Hezbollah denies that the Israeli attacks caused any damage, saying they only fired at “empty valleys”.

At the identical time, Hezbollah responded by sending a lot of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. These should not the most important rockets in its arsenal – they’ve limited range as much as 40 kilometers – so that they can only hit targets in northern Israel. Hezbollah said the rockets were intended to pave the best way for a wave of drones to achieve Israel. One of the Israeli sailors was killed within the attack.

In his Sunday video address, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared to apologizing for the Lebanese people for putting them on this position. And that is probably not surprising, because Hezbollah is each a political and military actor, and they should make sure that that they proceed to win votes within the Lebanese political system.

But Nasrallah said Hezbollah had achieved its goals and the group encouraged Lebanese who had moved away from the border to return. That could also be premature, though, since it continues to be unclear how it should all play out.

What does Iran think?

Most analysts assumed there may very well be a coordinated attack in retaliation for each the killing of Shukr in Beirut and the assassination Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. They could have been missiles and rockets from Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and possibly Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shiite militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

But that did not happen. And that might mean a number of things.

First, Iran at this stage might be attempting to work out how best to reply to Haniyeh’s assassination. In April, it sent greater than 300 missiles, drones, and rockets to Israel in retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian diplomatic constructing in Damascus that killed several members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). However, virtually all of them were shot down and there was no serious damage.

A repetition of such an event would indicate that Iran has no capability to take serious motion against Israel.

At the identical time, Iran wouldn’t need to launch a significant retaliatory strike since it could trigger a wider war. And Tehran doesn’t want to provide the Americans or Israelis a pretext to launch a coordinated attack on its nuclear facilities.

So Iran might be attempting to work out some sort of midpoint between the April attack and a rather stronger response. That clearly takes a while.

This can also indicate that there may be an ongoing debate in Iran between the entourage of newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, often called a slightly moderate person (for Iran), and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been threatening a really intransigent response to Israel’s actions for a while now.

Iran could simply determine to reply to Israel only through its proxies – limited attacks by Hezbollah and the Houthis are all it is ready to do at this stage. But that doesn’t mean the danger is over, as there may be at all times the potential of miscommunication between such hostile antagonists.

Netanyahu under pressure

Netanyahu can be under constant pressure from the fitting wing of his cabinet, which has long advocated eliminating the Hezbollah threat on Israel’s northern border, although that may be a tall order. Israel tried once before, in 2006, and largely failed.

In addition, about 60,000 Israelis They have had to go away their homes in northern Israel and reside in temporary accommodations due to the threat from Hezbollah. They want Netanyahu to make their return safer.

Responding to military threats on two fronts is difficult for Israel. The IDF has been fighting Hamas within the Gaza Strip and has been providing some protection to northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks for nearly 11 months.

The standing Israeli army can be not that big. It has only about 169,000 skilled soldierswhich implies it must depend on 300,000 reservists to fulfill current needs.

And the issue with introducing reservists into service: this affects the economy because they’re leaving their jobs. Over the past few weeks, Fitch Ratings Israel’s rating downgraded from A to A minus, reflecting the undeniable fact that the economy will not be doing in addition to it should, along with increased geopolitical risk. The country is in a continuing state of war, and the military wants a break.

Netanyahu, nevertheless, fears any lull within the fighting since it could split his coalition and trigger elections that he would likely lose.

Its entire strategy because the October 7 Hamas attack has been to rebuild its security credentials. It must give you the option to indicate that it could actually counter any threat to Israel, to revive public confidence in it. To try this, it must rebuild the trust of those living in northern Israel and stop Hezbollah’s attacks.

It seems that this will proceed for a while, but Hezbollah has also said that it should stop its attacks if there may be a ceasefire in Gaza. In this sense, we’re stuck in a loop that won’t stop until there may be a breakthrough within the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Given the obstacles that also exist on either side, it’s difficult to expect this to be achieved within the near future.