The Growing Hezbollah Threat to Israel’s North

Hezbollah is one of the largest external threats facing Israel today.

Since its founding in 1982, the Shiite terrorist organization’s entrenched position in southern Lebanon has posed a continual danger to the lives and well-being of both Israeli civilians and security personnel in northern Israel.

Over the past 40 years (and, particularly, since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000), the Hezbollah threat has occasionally escalated into full-blown violence between the Iran-backed terror proxy and Israel’s military. The most dramatic example of this is the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when the terror group kidnapped two Israeli reservists and directed an unprecedented volley of indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel’s northern communities over the course of 34 days.

Between 2006 and 2022, the Hezbollah threat to Israel’s north had largely been reduced to jingoistic saber-rattling and sporadic clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters. Over the past year, however, tensions have gradually risen as Hezbollah continues to escalate its threats against the Jewish state while also increasing its acts of aggression along Israel’s northern border.

From Threats to Rockets: Hezbollah’s Increasing Aggression Towards Israel

The continuing escalation on Israel’s northern border can be traced back to the summer of 2022, when Israel and Lebanon were engaged in US-mediated negotiations over contested Mediterranean waters. During the heated talks, Hezbollah continuously threatened Israel’s security if it did not halt gas production in the Mediterranean or cede to Lebanon what it was asking for.

In early July 2022, Hezbollah took it one step further by flying three drones toward a gas production vessel in the disputed Karish gas field. All three were shot down by Israeli forces.

The maritime deal was ultimately signed by Israel and Lebanon in October 2022.

In mid-March 2023, a terrorist crossed into Israel from Lebanon and planted a bomb at the Megiddo Junction, seriously injuring a 21-year-old Israeli Arab. The terrorist, later identified as being connected to Hezbollah, was killed by Israeli security forces as he attempted to make his way back to Lebanon.

Then, in April 2023, amidst an escalation in Palestinian violence in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas fired a volley of over 30 rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel (the largest rocket attack from Lebanon into Israel since the 2006 war).

According to analysts, this rocket attack was conducted with the tacit approval of Hezbollah, which treats southern Lebanon as its own personal fiefdom.

In the days following the rocket fire, several meetings were held in Beirut (including one in the Iranian embassy) between top Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. These talks were focused on expanding cooperation between the two terror groups and discussing “the readiness of the axis of resistance,” a reference to a coalition of Iran-backed organizations in Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Syria.

In June 2023, Israelis were shocked to learn that Hezbollah terrorists had been manning a small tent encampment within Israeli territory since early April. This encampment is located between the Blue Line (the UN-recognized line of demarcation between Israeli and Lebanese territory) and Israel’s northern security fence, which is located entirely in Israeli territory, in the Mount Dov and Shebaa Farms area.

Mount Dov is a part of the Golan Heights that was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. Even though the United Nations determined that Israel had completely withdrawn from Lebanese territory in 2000 and recognizes the mount as formerly Syrian territory, Hezbollah and Lebanon consider it to be Lebanese territory and have used it in the past as an excuse for instigating hostilities against Israel. According to regional analysts, the Hezbollah encampment inside Israeli territory is a brazen escalation that follows in line with the terror group’s recent establishment of numerous outposts along the Blue Line under the guise of an environmental organization.

Over the past year, 27 outposts have reportedly been set up on the Lebanon-Israel border (solely within Lebanese territory) by Green Without Borders, an organization whose stated purpose is to protect Lebanon’s green spaces and plant trees.

However, according to Israel, the United States, and some residents of southern Lebanon, the organization is actually a front for Hezbollah, and its outposts are used for surveillance of northern Israel as well as obstructing UNIFIL (the UN peacekeeping force) access to border areas that are supposed to be under its purview.

Since the Hezbollah encampment in Israeli territory became public knowledge in June, more focus has been drawn to the Israel-Lebanon border, leading to heightened tensions and clashes between Israeli security personnel and Lebanese protesters as well as members of Hezbollah.

These tensions have largely centered around Israel’s replacing its antiquated border fence with a more secure wall, and have occurred around the border areas of Kfar Chouba and Ghajar.

Over the past month, Hezbollah has encouraged Lebanese protesters to cross the border and throw rocks at IDF personnel tasked with preparing the ground for the new barrier. Short-range rockets have also been fired from Lebanon into Israel, and three Hezbollah operatives were repelled by the IDF following an attempt to breach the border fence.

Between the Megiddo Junction bombing, the approval of Hamas’ rocket attack, the tent encampment, and the recent burst of violence along the border, it is clear that Hezbollah has been purposefully heating up tensions over the past year.

Why Now?: Understanding Hezbollah’s Recent Antagonism of Israel

According to experts, there are several factors that have contributed to Hezbollah’s brazen antagonism of Israel over the past year. They include:

• Iran is looking to stoke tensions with Israel via its proxy terror organizations in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.
• The belief that, due to internal political divisions, Israel is weak and able to be taken advantage of.
• The belief that a conflict with Israel will put a stop to normalization between Israel and Arab states.
• The reduction of American influence in the Middle East.
• The desire to exact revenge against Israel for its continuous disruption of Iran/Hezbollah’s activities in Syria.
• With the return of its fighters from the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah is seeking to reassert its “resistance credentials” and also improve its public image among the Lebanese population.
• Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, believes that Israel will try to avert an all-out war with the terror group, allowing him to take more risks without the fear of a full-scale response.
• Hezbollah was emboldened by what it views as Israel’s acquiescence to Lebanese demands during the maritime negotiations in 2022. It now believes that it can increase its standing by threatening war over minor territorial disputes.

Is There a Hezbollah-Israel War in the Offing?

According to the Israeli media, there is an ongoing debate within the upper echelons of the IDF as to whether a large-scale war with Hezbollah is inevitable in the near future.

For military leaders, Hezbollah’s increasing intransigence along the northern border is proof that it is gearing up for a war with Israel, while others believe that Hezbollah’s low-scale acts of aggression show that it is trying to avoid a full-blown war.

If Israel does end up going to war with Hezbollah, it would be on a much larger scale than its recent conflicts with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

With an arsenal of 150,000 rockets pointed at the Jewish state, experts estimate that Hezbollah could bombard Israel’s north with up to 4,000 rockets per day at the beginning of the conflict and maintain a daily barrage of 1,500 to 2,000 rockets over an extended period of time. This is between 5 to 13 times more rockets than were fired at southern Israel during its 2023 conflict with Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

In addition, a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah could involve the use of explosive-filled tunnels to hinder the use of Israeli land forces or an attempt by Hezbollah to enter the Mount Dov area or other parts of northern Israel and gain temporary control.

In the meantime, as the prospect of war looms, Israel seems intent on diffusing the tension by not engaging directly with the Hezbollah encampment (preferring to use international intermediaries) and only using force on its border when absolutely necessary.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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