Israel Versus Hezbollah: Why the Iran War Has Spread to Lebanon

As it wages war on Iran in concert with the US, Israel is fighting on a second and more familiar front — against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. Hezbollah began lobbing mostly short-range rockets and drones into Israel the day after the operation against Iran began, the intensity of the salvos posing a threat to Israel on a par with Iran’s ballistic missiles. In response, the Israelis have carried out intensive air strikes on Lebanon and sent ground troops into the south of the country in a widening offensive.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and around a million displaced, piling pressure on the country’s government, which has failed to deliver on its pledge to disarm Hezbollah and thereby defuse its perennial conflict with Israel. The Israelis, while focused on neutralizing their arch-foe Iran, see in the crisis sweeping the region a chance to also finally drive Hezbollah away from their northern border, even if that entails reoccupying a buffer zone on Lebanese soil that was abandoned in 2000. Already weakened by a series of setbacks, Hezbollah now faces the biggest threat in its four-decade history.