Israel, Hezbollah Withdraw from War, But For How Long? All Eyes Now Turn to Iran’s Next Move

For weeks, Israel had been expecting a serious attack by Hezbollah in retaliation for assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon at the tip 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 each 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It is obvious that each Israel and Hezbollah have withdrawn from further motion at this stage.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 barely the primary phase of its response to the killing of Shukr and that it reserves the appropriate 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 hit, but added that it was not the tip 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 numerous Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. These aren’t the most important rockets in its arsenal – they’ve limited range up to 40 kilometers – in order that they can only hit targets in northern Israel. Hezbollah said the rockets were intended to pave the way in which for a wave of drones to reach 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, they usually need to be 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 might 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 occur. And that would mean just a few things.

First, Iran at this stage might be trying to work out how best to respond 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 want to launch a serious retaliatory strike since it could trigger a wider war. And Tehran doesn’t want to give the Americans or Israelis a pretext to launch a coordinated attack on its nuclear facilities.

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

This may additionally indicate that there may be an ongoing debate in Iran between the entourage of newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, referred to as 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 respond 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 all the time the opportunity of miscommunication between such hostile antagonists.

Netanyahu under pressure

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

In addition, about 60,000 Israelis They have had to leave their homes in northern Israel and live 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 suggests it must depend on 300,000 reservists to meet 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 indisputable fact that the economy shouldn’t be doing in addition to it should, as well as to increased geopolitical risk. The country is in a relentless 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 for the reason that October 7 Hamas attack has been to rebuild its security credentials. It must find a way to show that it will probably counter any threat to Israel, to restore public confidence in it. To do this, it must rebuild the trust of those living in northern Israel and stop Hezbollah’s attacks.

It seems that this may increasingly 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 each side, it’s difficult to expect this to be achieved within the near future.