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An Israeli operation against Hezbollah that finishes what it began in the 2024 war is only a matter of time. The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which was signed on Nov. 27, 2024, was not a mere truce that ended a round of escalation between the two sides. It was a turning point that effectively paralyzed Hezbollah. The group suffered heavy human and structural losses: its leadership was smashed, two of its secretaries-general were killed, its missiles and equipment were damaged and, most importantly, its self-image and reassurance regarding its secrecy were undermined by Israel’s extensive intelligence breaches.
The ceasefire froze hostilities on only one side. Attacks stopped being waged from Lebanon, while Israel has continued its near-daily strikes on Hezbollah targets, leaders, positions and logistical structures. The militia has completely avoided retaliation. For its part, the Lebanese state has failed to turn the “postwar equation” into a binding public policy that ends the pervasive presence of the group over its territory.
Hezbollah fills that vacuum with symbolic maneuvers that compensate, to some degree, for its bleeding. After losing its deterrence and its combat capabilities, these gestures aim to rebuild its narrative at costs it can handle, unlike the price that returning to the field or reestablishing security and military control would entail.
Aware that Hezbollah stands on shaky political ground, Israel is preparing to deliver a decisive strike
Nadim Koteich
The party’s theatrics began with its ministers walking out of a Cabinet session to discuss the army’s plan to restrict armament in the country. In doing so, they deprived the plan of the political consensus needed to be more than a political manifesto, rendering implementation untenable in terms of the sectarian balance.
These displays will not end with the breaking of the prime minister’s ban on Hezbollah using public urban spaces for political mobilization, nor with the projection of an image of the party’s two assassinated secretaries-general on to the Rock of Raouche.
Aware that Hezbollah stands on shaky political ground, Israel is preparing to deliver a decisive strike to reshape the operational environment in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa and Baalbek. Its campaign will not merely push Hezbollah away from the border; it will finish the job that it began in last year’s war.
This resumption of the conflict will entail massive aerial strikes on logistical and leadership nodes and swift ground operations across Lebanon. There is no reason to believe that Lebanese infrastructure would be spared, raising the cost of recovery to levels Lebanon cannot bear.
Hezbollah’s insistence on retaining its arms is the quickest recipe for either an Israeli war or domestic strife
Nadim Koteich
Indeed, Israel is relatively confident that there will be no regional expansion of the war, with other Iranian proxies joining the conflict, in light of the blows Iran sustained during the 12-day war in June.
The next war, whatever rules may govern it, will strike what remains of Lebanon’s fragile infrastructure: electricity, telecommunications and public services. That means import disruptions, sharp increases in the price of commodities and further deterioration of services that are already in decay. As for the banking sector, which is still confined to the intensive care ward, it will be incapable of absorbing the shocks of war, while mass displacement will fuel civil strife, given the climate fostered by Hezbollah’s recent shows of force.
For its part, Washington is evidently losing patience. The statements of US envoy Tom Barrack send a direct message to Beirut: adopt disarmament as an explicit goal in a government-approved plan, with a clear timeline and an independent, rigorous monitoring mechanism to assess progress, or Israel will act unilaterally.
The most concrete indication of its uncompromising stance is the final deadline it has set for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon’s mandate in southern Lebanon, which signals that the US administration is seeking a definitive resolution to the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. In Washington’s eyes, there is no rationale for this conflict beyond the residues of the Iranian project.
The shifting US position coincides with other considerations raised by next year’s midterm elections. President Donald Trump is pushing to end the Gaza war and remove this question from the electoral arena — a move that could raise Benjamin Netanyahu’s appetite to open the southern Lebanon front sooner than many expect.
Hezbollah’s options seem bleak. Negotiations over a political settlement that would increase its share of power are not on the table. It is being offered equality with the other factions and sects, no more and no less, as per the 1989 Taif Accord. Indeed, the party is not fighting for domestic political gains but for a regional ideological project.
As for its insistence on retaining its arms, whether in whole or in part — as it is currently doing — that is the quickest recipe for either an Israeli war or domestic strife. Either scenario would ultimately lead to the same outcome as surrendering its weapons, which no longer have a future, through a peaceful settlement. Hezbollah’s own base, like the Lebanese public at large, is in dire need of political options that open the door to rebuilding the devastated country. Getting there demands closing the chapter on its arms once and for all.
- Nadim Koteich is the general manager of Sky News Arabia. X: @NadimKoteich