As a fragile 60-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah approaches its end, the expectation that the prevailing calm along the Lebanese border will continue and transform into a long-term detente is suddenly being challenged by tough talk from both sides.
It’s a hudna — that’s to be expected.
In Israel, officials are concerned that the terror group is not pulling out of southern Leb...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
, and that the Lebanese Armed Forces, or LAF, which is supposed to move in, is moving too slowly to take over control of the area by the January 26 deadline. On Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that the Israel Defense Forces could be "forced to act" in response, and some in the military are apparently preparing for the possibility that the army could remain deployed north of the border beyond the 60-day deadline.
In the meantime, the IDF is continuing to carry out strikes against Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure in south Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement.
On the Hezbollah side, the Iran-backed group’s new leader Naim Qassem
... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies...
threatened in a Saturday speech that its "patience may run out" with Israeli behavior even before the end of the 60-day withdrawal period.
The comments have sparked worries that the deal could fall apart sooner rather than later, sending US special envoy Amos Hochstein back to Beirut in a bid to get the deal back on track.
But even if Qassem wanted to make good on his threat, it remains unclear what kind of actions the Shiite terror group would be able to undertake once its "patience" runs out, with its leadership largely decapitated and its rocket and missile stock reportedly reduced by at least 80%.
"Hezbollah is in an extremely unenviable position," Hezbollah expert Matthew Levitt told The Times of Israel by phone recently. "It’s on life support right now."
"The Axis of Resistance® stood [on] a three-legged stool of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Two of those legs don’t exist anymore," said Levitt, who is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former FBI counterterrorism expert.
However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
there are multiple indications that the terror group has only been temporarily deterred, and could resume fighting if it is allowed to reconstitute its arsenal. The process will also involve rebuilding its base in Lebanon by helping stabilize and reconstruct the country after bringing about widespread destruction and turmoil at the service of a foreign entity, angering many Lebanese.
In a December 14 speech, Qassem indicated that the group’s agenda moving forward was to focus on domestic Lebanese issues, namely "the implementation of the agreement south of the Litani River, reconstruction, the election of a head of state on January 9, and positive dialogue on the problematic issues."
The political crisis has been particularly daunting. The country has been without a president for over two years, chiefly due to Hezbollah’s political arm insisting on elevating its candidate, Sleiman Frangieh, though he lacks the support of other political parties.
"Hezbollah understands that the country is already quite angry and quite worried, especially with the fall of the [neighboring] Assad regime. There is now a regime in Syria that hates Hezbollah. Hezbollah doesn’t want another civil war. It doesn’t have the support that it had before," Levitt said. "It will fight to protect its position."
While the ceasefire agreement — backed by international guarantors — may keep Hezbollah from regrouping in areas south of the Litani River, from which it poses the most direct threat to Israel, there is no reason to think the terror group will lay down its weapons or desist from regrouping militarily anywhere else in the country; renouncing its arsenal would imply losing clout and power, and ultimately its raison d’être.
And despite Western backing and funding, Lebanon’s military has yet to actively confront the terror group or seize its weapons as far as is known.
Earlier this month, four sources briefed on updated US intelligence told Rooters that the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group will likely try to rebuild its arms and forces, allowing it to once again pose a long-term threat to Israel.
"If the LAF goes after Hezbollah in a way that makes it feel threatened, then Hezbollah will open fire against them," David Daoud, a Lebanon expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. "But there has not been a single move against them. So Hezbollah will try and get what it wants quietly, through political means. The resistance prefers the path of least resistance."
THE DANGER FOR ISRAEL HAS NOT SUBSIDED
Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah began in earnest in mid-September, when thousands of the group’s pagers and walkie-talkies booby-trapped by Israel went
kaboom!.
The operation followed nearly a year of almost-daily rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel starting on October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah, unprovoked, began firing at Israel in support of fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,..., which a day earlier had stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, starting the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
But while the autumn 2024 offensive saw Israel take out much of the group’s rocket arsenal and command and control structure, it has not been completely defanged.
"In terms of the threat to Israel, [Hezbollah] has become more of a traditional terrorist organization," said Levitt. "They can still do a cross-border raid. They will try to move material south of the demarcation line. At some point in the not-too-distant future, they can still shoot a rocket. They can certainly carry out attacks abroad."
"Those are very dangerous things that are not to be minimized. But they are nothing like the full-scale rocket and missile threat that Hezbollah posed before," he added.
Consequently, the IDF will need to remain vigilant even after the 60-day truce during which it is allowed to remain on Lebanese territory, and to continue targeting Hezbollah operatives violating the late November ceasefire agreement.
"Israel is not going to be expected to sit back and watch as enemies begin to prepare over time to be able to strike at Israeli civilians again," Levitt said.
Israel also does not have the luxury of complacency based on the fact that the new Syrian regime helmed by rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is hostile to Hezbollah and Iran.
Sharaa and his government are currently bent on gaining international legitimacy, but the new regime’s overstretched security forces will need time to extend their control over the whole of Syria’s territory. In the meantime, Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
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Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
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Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
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is expected to exploit the power vacuum in parts of the country to attempt to smuggle weapons to its Lebanese proxy, according to Mike Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Iran-backed militias
"Although the collapse of Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
’s regime is certainly encouraging, this does not mean its former patron Iran will simply give up on using Syria as a corridor for reconstituting Hezbollah next door in Lebanon," Knights wrote in a recent analysis. "Quite the opposite: Iranian arms smuggling has historically thrived in collapsed or weak state environments."
"As Syria presumably reopens post-Assad, it will see an influx of people, vehicles, money, humanitarian aid
, reconstruction supplies, and consumer goods, much of it via truck transport from neighboring states. Iran could easily use this influx to reconstitute both Hezbollah and its proxy factions in Syria," Knights wrote.HEZBOLLAH’S DOMESTIC BASE STILL PERSISTS, ALBEIT ERODED
While many Lebanese have raised their voice against Hezbollah’s military adventures and for dragging the country into a destructive war, popular support for the terror group has not completely eroded, particularly among Shiites, who make up about a third of the country’s population of over 5 million.
An Arab Barometer survey conducted between February and April 2024 found that 85% of Lebanon’s Shiites have "quite a bit or a great deal of trust in Hezbollah," while only nine percent of Sunnis and six percent of Christians expressed the same sentiment.
Scenes of Lebanese waving Hezbollah flags in jubilation after the ceasefire suggest that base may still be solid.
"Hezbollah is at the weakest it’s ever been, but finishing it off requires a ’final squeeze’ from within Lebanon — and that’s not going to happen," said Daoud, pointing to images of displaced Shiites returning to their homes in Hezbollah strongholds hailing the "resistance" and its slain leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
"They still have a bit of breathing room in which they can learn to maneuver," he added.
One of the tools with which Hezbollah has managed to attract and maintain a vast base among Shiites is through financial assistance. While the terror group’s finances were hard hit in the war — branches of its bank al-Qard al-Hassan were targeted in IDF
...
KABOOM!...
s — Hezbollah still has liquidity at its disposal.
In early December, Qassem said the terror group had paid more than $50 million in cash to families affected by the war, almost all of them Shiites, giving out $300 and $400 per person. He said the group planned to pay out more than $77 million in total, plus lump sums between $4,000 and $8,000 to those whose primary homes were destroyed.
The payments would be financed mainly by Iran, he added.
Can Iran afford it?
In the upcoming reconstruction phase, Hezbollah will also be able to draw from foreign contributions made to Lebanon’s state coffers, and will receive donations from the Shiite Lebanese diaspora abroad, Daoud predicted.In addition, Hezbollah will continue to play a prominent role in Lebanese politics as a legitimate political party. It still sits in the government and still has 15 members of parliament (13 from its ranks and two independent Hezbollah supporters), and maintains alliances with other political factions.
In 2022, the last time Lebanon held an election, Hezbollah and pro-Hezbollah independents received over 356,000 votes, more than any other party.
"Other political forces cannot just tell a party that got that many votes, from the sect that is Lebanon’s largest and fastest growing, that ’we don’t want to listen to you,'" Daoud said.
While Hezbollah attempts to repair its reputation and mend ties with its domestic allies, Israel will need to stay vigilant, watching the group’s movements and preventing any attempt at reconstituting its military capabilities, the expert said.
"Lebanon is giving them time to rest and relax. And that’s that’s the scary part. The more time they have, the more they can rearm and go back to where we were," Daoud said. "So what Israel should do is not let them rest and relax."
See? Hudna.