{"id":217,"date":"2026-06-02T12:09:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housingnewsamerica.com\/?p=217"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:09:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:09:06","slug":"hezbollahs-trap-for-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housingnewsamerica.com\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Hezbollah\u2019s Trap for Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the past week, the status of the conflict in Lebanon has careered wildly between escalation and attempts at statecraft. On May 30, Israeli and Lebanese military delegations met at the Pentagon to prepare for a fourth round of diplomatic negotiations intended to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror organization and Iranian proxy. Just a day later, however, Israelis and Lebanese citizens experienced a grim sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu when Israel Defense Forces soldiers raised the Israeli flag over Beaufort Castle, a twelfth-century fortress in southern Lebanon that is a painful symbol of the nearly two-decade Israeli occupation that ended in 2000 with no strategic gains. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the fortress\u2019s recapture, declaring that \u201cwe returned to the Beaufort stronger than ever.\u201d Then, a day after that, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had brokered an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting.<\/p>\n

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Israel and Hezbollah have already interpreted Trump\u2019s statement differently, and their sparring has not ceased. Recent history suggests the strategic whiplash will continue. In mid-April, following a third round of negotiations, Washington announced a 45\u2011day cease-fire extension in Lebanon. But after that announcement, the conflict persistently intensified. According to Alma, an Israeli nonprofit research center, in the week beginning on May 25, Hezbollah conducted 227 attacks on IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians using rockets, antitank fire, and drones\u2014up from 161 attacks the week before, and spread over a wider area. Israeli northern communities have been under constant fire and tens of thousands have been displaced. The IDF, meanwhile, has been striking deeper into Lebanon and threatening to hit Beirut. Since mid-April, it has razed villages, killed (by its count) nearly 800 Hezbollah operatives and hundreds of Lebanese civilians, and deployed large teams from two military divisions to create an expanding buffer zone.<\/p>\n

Israeli leaders have been trying to hold both ends of the stick, simultaneously engaging in high-profile diplomacy while sustaining military operations. They hope they can satisfy a variety of constituencies at once: on the one hand, the Trump administration and European capitals eager for diplomacy, and on the other, Israelis anxious about their security (especially those who live in the north) and the small but politically influential Israeli extreme right, which wants territorial expansion. Israel will hold an election in the fall, and a failure to aggressively respond to Hezbollah would expose Netanyahu\u2019s government to real risks. It promised Israelis total victory over Iran and its proxy militias, not compromise. Although there is no domestic political downside for Netanyahu in going along with the diplomatic track, there has been no upside to seriously committing to it, either.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s approach to Lebanon must also be understood in the context of the post\u2013October 7 shift in the Israeli mindset. The risks of watching and waiting for a threat to accumulate simply appear to be too great. So Israel has shifted from prioritizing deterrence to an always\u2011on security doctrine that prioritizes so-called forward defense\u2014seizing territory, creating buffer zones, and accepting constant military campaigning. The capture of Beaufort Castle, Netanyahu emphasized, was \u201ca dramatic stage in the policy we are leading. We have broken the barrier of fear. We are taking the initiative [and] operating on all fronts\u2014in Syria, in Gaza, in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

This display of confidence, however, masks mounting frustration. And if the current escalatory dynamic continues, that will squander a rare opening for Israel and Lebanon to achieve a shared strategic objective. They both want Hezbollah disarmed and Lebanon\u2019s sovereignty restored; since Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, Hezbollah has only made it clearer that its ultimate allegiance is to Iran, not the Lebanese people. But disarming the militia requires patient, sequenced statecraft. Only the Lebanese state can legitimately and sustainably disarm the militia.<\/p>\n

Israel cannot substitute firepower for legitimacy. It can, however, help shape the conditions that enable Beirut to reclaim its sovereignty. This week’s negotiations must move more urgently, aiming to do much more than to extend the crumbling cease-fire and contain the conflict to southern Lebanon. Unless the talks enable a fundamentally different approach and produce discernible benefits for both Lebanese and Israelis, the renewal of full-on war will be inevitable\u2014and the hope of permanently weakening Hezbollah and making peace will be extinguished.<\/p>\n

SOWING THE WIND<\/h3>\n

Israel began planning a new campaign against Hezbollah in mid-to-late 2025. In November 2024, a cease-fire had ended the yearlong previous war, triggered when the Shiite militant group began firing on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. After several months, however, IDF intelligence assessed that Hezbollah had recovered some of its military capacity and could again pose a serious threat to Israel. The new Lebanese government that took office in February 2025 proposed an aspirational plan to disarm Hezbollah, but it had neither the capacity nor the political will to accomplish this enormous task within an acceptable time frame.<\/p>\n

U.S. pressure and preparations for the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sidelined Israel\u2019s Lebanon plans. But soon after the campaign against Iran began, Israel initially believed that it had tricked Hezbollah into violating the cease-fire when the militia fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel to avenge the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It may be truer, however, to say that Israel inadvertently fell into a trap. Throughout 2025, the country had benefited from what some Israeli analysts called a \u201cluxury\u201d cease-fire. It retained the freedom to preempt threats and maintained a military foothold in five points inside Lebanon, while Hezbollah refrained from acting. Israel was ready for Hezbollah to retaliate against Khamenei\u2019s death and saw an opportunity to go on a broader offensive, assuming a manageable task confronting a debilitated group with weaker ties to, and reduced support from, Iran. The opposite happened. Hezbollah\u2019s ties with Tehran are now stronger, and the militia now operates as a dispersed guerilla organization. Its prior restraint has given way to bold tactics to inflict deadly damage on IDF soldiers in Lebanon and on Israeli northern communities.<\/p>\n

There is no military fix for the problem that Hezbollah poses.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although Israel\u2019s military campaign has suffered from strategic and tactical faults, primarily its vulnerability to updated drone tactics by Hezbollah, it has yielded a string of wins. According to Israel, it has killed nearly 3,000 Hezbollah fighters (including several high-level commanders) since early March. It has destroyed a nearly mile-long Hezbollah tunnel network, seized scores of weapons caches, demolished rocket launchers and terror infrastructure in homes and other facilities in Lebanese villages, and captured land extending up to six miles into southern Lebanon and comprising roughly five percent of the country\u2019s territory. But the offensive has also been terribly costly. More than 3,000 Lebanese, including civilians, have been killed, and over 1.5 million people have been displaced. Hezbollah\u2019s strikes have killed dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians and injured hundreds. They have forced tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel from their homes; those who remain live under a persistent threat.<\/p>\n

The truth is that there is no military fix for the problem that Hezbollah poses. A buffer zone can stop cross-border invasions and short-range antitank fire, but it is not effective in preventing rocket attacks or dismantling Hezbollah cells further north. In mid-March, the IDF\u2019s own reporting showed that most rocket launches affecting northern Israel originated from north of the Litani River, beyond the area that Israel could realistically hold without fully occupying Lebanon.<\/p>\n

And a long-term occupation of even southern Lebanon is also dangerous. It would expose Israeli troops to guerrilla harassment and would become a huge domestic liability if casualties mount, as historical precedence demonstrates. Between 1982 and 2000, Israel established a security\u2011zone presencein Lebanon, hoping to distance Israeli civilians from threats. The resulting protracted occupation cost many soldiers\u2019 and reservists\u2019 lives, drained state resources, and fueled domestic protest and political backlash. That backlash ultimately compelled Israel\u2019s withdrawal in 2000 without having made strategic gains and leaving an ever more popular and capable adversary behind. The approach that did not deliver security in the 1980s and 1990s cannot do so today. In fact, it could be even more counterproductive at a moment when meaningfully weakening Hezbollah or even disarming the group could be possible for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK<\/h3>\n

Israel has sustained its aggressive approach to Lebanon, despite its failings, because such an approach has also become the centerpiece of a new, broader security doctrine. Before the shock of October 7, Israel\u2019s doctrine rested on three pillars: create credible deterrence, establish early-warning systems for attacks, and build the defenses and military capacity to deliver swift, decisive victories in war. Israel is a small country facing many threats, and its leaders also demonstrated a preference for negotiated arrangements that lengthened intervals between wartimes to allow its military, economy, and populace time to recover. Israel\u2019s defense establishment viewed Hezbollah as its most significant and immediate conventional threat, yet it used a \u201cquiet for quiet\u201d strategy to maintain short-term stability, choosing to absorb low-level provocations rather than launch retaliatory strikes that could trigger a war on the northern border.<\/p>\n

On October 7, however, these three security pillars failed. Rather than interrogating those failures and repairing its national security institutions, Israel turned toward a new doctrine based on prevention. This posture sustains a constant cycle of conflict. In addition to continuous raids, displays of airpower, and spectacular special operations, the new doctrine emphasizes forward\u2011defense measures, a euphemism for seizing territory in neighboring countries by creating buffer zones.<\/p>\n

There is no question that Lebanon\u2019s inability to enforce its sovereignty continues to pose a material security threat to Israel. For decades, Lebanon has provided the terrain that external actors used to launch attacks on Israeli territory\u2014from the Palestinian Liberation Organization between 1968 and 1982 to Iran\u2019s proxy Hezbollah today. But Hezbollah is a deeply rooted Lebanese political and social movement as well as an Iranian proxy. It runs social services, builds patronage networks, and sustains a narrative of resistance that fills gaps left by a weak state. Confronting it cannot be done militarily only.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu faces intense pressure to intensify his campaign in Lebanon.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel agreed to talks with Lebanon in mid-April only at Trump\u2019s request, after it ignored Lebanese President Joseph Aoun\u2019s calls for negotiations in March. As the talks began in April, even as Israel pursued its new doctrine in Lebanon, it tried to signal its openness to peace. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar asserted that his country \u201chas no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.\u201d But other high-ranking Israeli officials have sounded a much more expansionist note. On May 26, Homeland Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote that \u201cWe need to cut the electricity [to Lebanon], turn off the switch, and make it clear to them: If there is terrorism, you will suffer the consequences.\u201d He also warned that if the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, the area south of the Litani River \u201cwill become a security buffer zone for the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has attempted to have it both ways. In a statement on April 16, he declared that Israel had \u201can opportunity to forge a historic peace agreement with Lebanon,\u201d only to place maintenance of the buffer zone as a precondition for the talks, saying in the same statement that he intends to remain \u201cin Lebanon in a reinforced security buffer zone. This is not the \u2018five points\u2019 that existed before \u2018Roaring Lion.\u2019 This is a security buffer that starts at the sea and continues to Mount Dov and the foothills of Mt. Hermon, up to the Syrian border. This is a security strip ten kilometers deep, which is much stronger, more intense, more continuous, and more solid than what we had previously. That is where we are and we are not leaving.\u201d In the six deadly weeks since, his rhetoric only hardened.<\/p>\n

An agreement and a photo op with Aoun could serve Netanyahu\u2019s own narrative that he is delivering Israel \u201cpeace through strength.\u201d But the reality is that Netanyahu\u2019s government faces intense public and political pressure to intensify its campaign in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah\u2019s lethal use of first-person-view drones, a highly anticipated tactic to which Israel was embarrassingly ill prepared. Israelis want security, and they dismiss the role that a peace process can play in delivering it. Nahum Barnea, a veteran liberal Israeli columnist, captured the national mood in a recent essay. \u201cIsrael does not need recognition from Lebanon,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt does not need peace. It does not need love. It needs only one thing: that no rockets or drones cross the border. Lebanon cannot provide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ratcheting up operations in Lebanon also serves a political purpose. Every day that Hezbollah or other adversaries dominate the headlines is a day without serious discussion of a national commission of inquiry into the government\u2019s catastrophic mistakes ahead of and on October 7\u2014or of the prime minister’s corruption trial. And the creation of buffer zones gratifies Israel\u2019s extreme, messianic political right wing, which envisions annexing far more land in the Levant; although this group represents a fringe minority of voters, it is a key part of Netanyahu\u2019s coalition. Escalation in Lebanon could also derail a U.S.\u2013Iran agreement that Israel opposes. As Washington and Tehran struggle to agree on a framework, Iran\u2019s Tasnim News Agency reported on June 1 that talks had paused due to Israeli operations in Lebanon. Tehran has made a cease-fire there a precondition for any broader deal, demanding that Israel halt its attacks and withdraw to its border.<\/p>\n

BREAK THE PATTERN<\/h3>\n

But Netanyahu\u2019s recent bravado masks a real predicament. By pursuing both diplomacy and military operations at the same time, Israel has hamstrung its efforts in both realms. Yechiel Leiter, Israel\u2019s ambassador to Washington and its representative at the talks, paraphrased the late Yitzhak Rabin by saying that \u201cthe focus is now on \u2026 reaching a peace treaty as if there\u2019s no Hezbollah and fighting Hezbollah as if there\u2019s no peace treaty. And I think we\u2019re going to accomplish both.\u201d At this rate, neither objective will be achievable.<\/p>\n

Ordinary Israelis know that the current approach does not improve their security in the long run. An April 26 Institute for National Security Studies poll found that 69 percent of Israeli respondents agreed that \u201cthe campaign against Hezbollah should continue.\u201d But 62 percent also disagreed that \u201cthe current campaign in Lebanon will provide long-term security calm.\u201d Eighty-four percent of respondents expressed concern about the security situation in Lebanon, up sharply from 51 percent in February. The anxiety crosses partisan lines. Eighty-four percent of people who voted for Netanyahu\u2019s coalition expressed that worry.<\/p>\n

Israelis are becoming disheartened by a recurring pattern. Their military delivers blows that are tactically costly to Hezbollah but fail to deliver the grand strategic promises that the country\u2019s political echelon keeps making to the public, leaving them repeatedly disappointed by optimistic assurances.<\/p>\n

Disarming a paramilitary force that is also a major political and social movement is a complex task, even in more favorable contexts. It can succeed quickly only when a militant group voluntarily signs a peace treaty in exchange for its inclusion in formal politics, as the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Columbia, or FARC, did in the early 2010s, or when an international coalition forcibly integrates the militia into a new state structure, as the United Nations and NATO did to the Kosovo Liberation Army in the late 1990s. The Irish Republican Army\u2019s disarmament took seven years after a political agreement was struck. In Lebanon, Israel is trying to use external military pressure to force a third party\u2014the frail, factionalized Lebanese state\u2014to disarm an uncooperative militia, making the case and timeline uniquely complicated.<\/p>\n

But disarming Hezbollah is essential for the sake of both the Israelis and the Lebanese. And as Israel winds itself even more tightly into a strategic bind, it also risks wasting a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Much of the Lebanese public is fed up with Hezbollah, and public discourse has recently shifted in ways that create a historic opening for peace. Since the early 2025 change in government, key Lebanese politicians and activists have publicly distanced themselves from Hezbollah and talked about peace with Israel, a previously taboo subject; some Lebanese figures have even flirted with limited diplomatic engagement. A May poll by Information International, an independent research and consultancy firm based in Beirut, showed that most Lebanese support peace with Israel. But a prolonged Israeli presence with no tangible diplomatic progress could rehabilitate Hezbollah\u2019s resistance narrative and fuel its effort to present itself as a necessary defender against occupation.<\/p>\n

TALK CAN\u2019T BE CHEAP<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The U.S.-led talks between the Israeli and Lebanese governments are limited by design. Because Israel is heading to elections in the fall, the negotiating team has little authority, let alone any ability to discuss an IDF withdrawal from Lebanese territory in the foreseeable future. The continuation of the negotiations despite escalation on the ground theoretically preserves a pathway for progress. But like Lebanese leaders, Israeli leaders will soon need to demonstrate that this peace process offers tangible benefits to their respective constituencies.<\/p>\n

The Lebanese government and most of its people are Israel\u2019s partners and should be treated as such on the long, arduous way to disarm Hezbollah. As an immediate confidence-building measure, Israeli leaders\u2014Netanyahu in particular\u2014must articulate clearly that Israel has no long-term territorial claims in Lebanon and that the IDF\u2019s presence in the southern part of the country is only temporary. Israel should also avoid fortifying its presence and accept a partial withdrawal as part of a U.S.-Iranian agreement (if one is signed). Doing the latter could provide Israel a needed off-ramp by forcing it to roll back its expanded buffer zone, ideally to the original five hilltops it held upon the November 2024 cease-fire. Notwithstanding the domestic pressure for military aggression, operational restraint is important, as well. Indiscriminate strikes (especially in Beirut), razing villages, and creating permanent structures on Lebanese soil undercut the Lebanese government\u2019s domestic legitimacy and its ability to confront Hezbollah\u2014and they risk rehabilitating the group\u2019s image as a protector of Lebanese civilians. Israel must calibrate its operations so that they degrade Hezbollah\u2019s combat capacity while preserving the civic infrastructure that the Lebanese state needs to expand its authority.<\/p>\n

Israel could also offer immediate confidence-building measures that can be sold at home: water projects in shared river basins, energy cooperation initiatives to ease Lebanon\u2019s power crisis, visitation rights to holy sites for Lebanese pilgrims, and a phased review of the status of Lebanese detainees held in Israel who are not Hezbollah members. Such measures would not constitute concessions but investments in the stability of a neighbor. They would also give Beirut political room to stand up to Hezbollah, keep negotiating, and reciprocate with similar steps, such as canceling a law that criminalizes all direct and indirect contact between Lebanese and Israelis.<\/p>\n

Israeli leaders need to be candid with their own domestic constituents and recalibrate expectations. Overstating victories only breeds public frustration. They should also stop framing the Lebanese government and its military as incompetent and instead acknowledge what it has done so far to tackle Hezbollah\u2014including decommissioning nearly 10,000 rockets and almost 400 missiles, according to U.S. Central Command, reestablishing control over the Beirut airport (a key node in the smuggling network that funds Hezbollah), removing military officers tied to Hezbollah from key roles, deploying troops to the country\u2019s eastern border with Syria, and opening military intelligence files on Hezbollah operatives. In another promising step, Lebanon\u2019s central bank has imposed unprecedented bans and regulatory crackdowns on al-Qard al-Hasan, Hezbollah\u2019s parallel banking institution.<\/p>\n

The Lebanese government is Israel\u2019s partner and should be treated as such.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, Israel and the United States must be clear-eyed about what Lebanon has yet to do and plainly state the gaps in capacity and will, holding Lebanon accountable. The U.S. negotiating team should turn its list of principles into a clear road map that both Lebanon and Israel can sign and that sets benchmarks for both countries. This plan must provide for the strengthening of the Lebanese Armed Forces (conditioned on the removal of Hezbollah members from its ranks), the breaking of Hezbollah\u2019s patronage and financial networks, the institution of anticorruption measures in Lebanon, and the restoration of basic services in Shiite areas. The road map should assign responsibilities, set realistic timelines, and enlist partners in the Gulf and Europe to offer financial incentives that make disarming Hezbollah, rehoming and reconstructing displaced communities, and economic development more realistic. Signing up for such a plan would offer Israel diplomatic advantages in Europe, where its support is plummeting, and in Arab countries with which it aspires to normalize diplomatic ties, especially Saudi Arabia\u2014the prime candidate for funding Lebanon\u2019s reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Such a road map should also lay out a phased IDF withdrawal that is tied to Lebanon meeting clear benchmarks. The Lebanese Armed Forces\u2014vetted, trained, and equipped under a U.S.-led program\u2014 must assume security responsibility across the south as Hezbollah\u2019s armed infrastructure is verifiably degraded. Unlike the United Nations\u2019 peacekeeping mission to Lebanon, which failed to comprehensively monitor Hezbollah and whose mandate is coming to an end this summer, U.S. and European monitors should chart Lebanon\u2019s progress according to clear criteria: how many Hezbollah weapons it has decommissioned, how many checkpoints it has established to prevent Hezbollah from becoming re-entrenched in old stomping grounds, and how many security troops it has positioned along the Lebanese border with Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel can also propose a non\u2011belligerency framework, or even a conditional peace agreement, that is ready for signature once Hezbollah\u2019s presence is reduced. Solving land border disputes between Israel and Lebanon in such a context could achieve three aims: it could undercut Hezbollah\u2019s narrative as a defender of Lebanon; allow political leaders to claim forward motion without waiting for an all\u2011or\u2011nothing settlement; and demonstrate to both Lebanon and the international community that Israel is not interested in perpetual war.<\/p>\n

Israel faces a stark choice. It can accept a demanding bargain: pair calibrated deterrence and temporary military measures with clear initiatives to strengthen Lebanese state capacity and delegitimize Hezbollah. Or it can keep leaning on prevention and retribution\u2014policies that prize kinetic action over patient diplomacy\u2014and pay accumulating military, economic, and diplomatic costs. In both the near and long term, however, that will only play into Hezbollah\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

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