Richard Haass
The Middle East resembles nothing so much as an earthquake zone with multiple fault lines. This week, fighting increased sharply along one of those lines, Israel’s border with Lebanon and more specifically, between Israel and Hezbollah. This in turn triggered activity along another fault line, as Iran, Hezbollah’s backer, retaliated by firing ballistic missiles at Israel, which has vowed to respond severely. Less clear is what will come next, either along these particular fault lines or elsewhere in the region.
What made escalation all but inevitable were rocket strikes by Hezbollah against Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack. Israel evacuated some 60,000 citizens from the northern border to shield them from the risk of attacks similar to Hamas’s, but the mounting exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel made it impossible for them to return safely.
What enabled the emergence of this new front, however, is that the situation in Gaza had reached something of a new equilibrium. Over the past year, Israel has sharply degraded the military threat posed by Hamas. Between 10,000 and 20,000 of its fighters have been killed, with many of its leaders either assassinated or forced into indefinite hiding in Gaza’s labyrinth of tunnels. Israel determined that it could safely shift its focus to its northern border and Hezbollah.
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