Middle East and North Africa

Hezbollah plunged Lebanon into yet another crisis when it fired rockets at Israel in response to its attacks on Iran and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader. The group has handed Israel an excuse to intensify its own strikes on Lebanon—and even potentially invade and occupy more territory, ostensibly to create a buffer zone for self-defense.

The Lebanese state, angered by Hezbollah’s defiance, has officially banned the group’s military wing. But can the state actually stop Hezbollah from firing salvos at Israel—or, for that matter, even from aiming at the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) if challenged?

Hezbollah plunged Lebanon into yet another crisis when it fired rockets at Israel in response to its attacks on Iran and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader. The group has handed Israel an excuse to intensify its own strikes on Lebanon—and even potentially invade and occupy more territory, ostensibly to create a buffer zone for self-defense.

The Lebanese state, angered by Hezbollah’s defiance, has officially banned the group’s military wing. But can the state actually stop Hezbollah from firing salvos at Israel—or, for that matter, even from aiming at the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) if challenged?

It has long been feared that if the Lebanese state took on Hezbollah, it could split the LAF, inflame sectarian tensions, and lead to a civil war. But some believe that the ghost of the country’s last civil war is a convenient narrative excuse that only serves Hezbollah and keeps the Lebanese state a hostage to its whims.

Some in Lebanon hoped that Hezbollah would refrain from attacking Israel if only to prove its stated raison d’être of protecting Lebanon from external threats rather than serving at Iran’s beck and call. Immediately upon the start of the war, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned the group against dragging Lebanon into the fighting. And for a while it seemed that the group might stay put, as Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem delayed its first press statement. Even after Hezbollah launched a barrage of strikes on Israel, some said that the strikes were meant to be symbolic and limited in scope, intended to threaten Israel with a war on a second front.

But the group may have already concluded that a war with Israel was inevitable, since Israel wouldn’t let up on demands for its complete disarmament and, despite a ceasefire in effect since November 2024, had continued regular military strikes in the group’s stronghold of southern Lebanon.........

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