Israel–Hezbollah: the drivers of escalation and its implications for Lebanon

On 2 March 2026, Lebanese Hezbollah launched an attack against Israel, triggering a large-scale escalation marked by the intensification of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, particularly on its capital, as well as by the deployment of troops in the South. This sequence forms part of a broader regionalisation of the conflict caused by the Israeli-American aggression against Iran, and of the weakening of the Lebanese government, confronted both with the disarmament of Hezbollah and with the continuation of Israeli violations of the ceasefire signed in November 2024. How can Hezbollah’s decision be explained? What are its political consequences for Lebanon and what is the army’s capacity to carry out its disarmament? Finally, are the initiatives in favour of a ceasefire likely to succeed in the short term? An assessment with Thomas Sarthou, international strategy analyst and graduate of IRIS Sup’.

At dawn on 2 March, Hezbollah launched six missiles and eight drones towards Israel, prompting a large-scale response from Tel Aviv. How can this decision be explained?

First of all, this decision illustrates the determination of the Lebanese Shiite movement to stand alongside Tehran in the aggression it has been subjected to by Washington and Tel Aviv since 28 February 2026. In addition to its role as Hezbollah’s financial and material provider, the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a central ideological and religious reference for the movement and for part of the Shiite community in Lebanon. The attack was moreover presented by Hezbollah as an act of “revenge” for the assassination of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, whose elimination had previously been described as a “red line” by party officials.

However, as soon as the Israeli-American operation began, channels of discussion had been opened between the Lebanese executive and the movement in order to convince it not to become involved. Likewise, leaks in the press originating from party officials indicated that the latter would only become involved in the event of Israeli aggression on Lebanese soil. It is likely that Hezbollah’s military apparatus sought to maintain a form of strategic ambiguity in order to take Tel Aviv by surprise, at a time when several Israeli media outlets were reporting preparations for a large-scale operation in South Lebanon.

It should also be noted that numerous questions surround Hezbollah’s operational command. An hour and a half of silence separated the attack from its official claim by the party. This delay suggests a decision taken in haste, if not internal disagreement within the movement. Indeed, for several months, various signs have pointed to divisions between its political branch, embodied by the current Secretary-General Naïm Qassem, as well as other members from the Iraqi-origin al-Dawaa party, and its military branch, which is close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. At present, the movement’s communication is tightly controlled and the so-called “reformist” figures within Hezbollah have unanimously aligned themselves behind the decision to engage in confrontation with Israel.

Finally, this choice may be purely strategic in nature and aimed at pulling Hezbollah out of the deadlock in which it found itself. Since the signing of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, the party has made numerous political concessions and has accepted, within the framework of the disarmament plan led by the Lebanese authorities, the dismantling of its military structures in the south of the country, while nevertheless refusing its application across the rest of the territory so long as concrete assurances had not been provided to halt Israeli attacks and a national defence strategy, developed jointly with the executive, had not been implemented. Despite this, no guarantees were provided to it by France and the United States, tasked with supervising the implementation of the agreement. Tel Aviv has not ceased its systematic violations (approximately 15,000), targeting its leaders as well as its civilian and economic structures, and has maintained its occupation. Hezbollah, for its part, refrained from any military response.

It is now seeking to alter the balance of power through what brought it success in 2000 and 2006: guerrilla warfare. The terrain of South Lebanon, favourable to asymmetric combat, combined with Hezbollah’s operational experience in this domain, could transform any larger-scale Israeli incursion into a prolonged war of attrition, politically and militarily difficult for Tel Aviv to sustain.

Meeting in the Council of Ministers the day after the attack, the Lebanese government announced the prohibition of all Hezbollah military and security activities and tasked the Lebanese army with carrying out its disarmament “by all necessary means”. What are the political consequences of such a measure? Is the Lebanese army capable of carrying out this mission?

By offering Israel the long-awaited pretext to launch this disproportionate and bloody response, Hezbollah made a strategic choice that will carry heavy consequences. The humanitarian tragedy currently unfolding in Lebanon, with more than one million displaced persons, 2,584 wounded and 1,001 dead according to the Lebanese authorities, risks durably affecting its image. Furthermore, the choice to respond to Khamenei’s assassination reinforces among certain Lebanese, increasingly numerous, the perception that the party is a destabilising actor, affiliated with interests external to Lebanon and whose maintenance of its arsenal threatens the population more than it protects it.

What is new in the current sequence lies in the Israeli strategy of massively and systematically targeting areas predominantly populated by Shiites. Whereas the 2024 campaign primarily aimed to destroy weapons stockpiles and decapitate the movement, the orders for mass evacuations from Beirut’s southern suburbs and the South are intended to isolate Hezbollah from its social base and dismantle its “society of resistance”. Israel is also aware that it cannot eradicate a resistance movement through military superiority alone, and is therefore seeking to increase pressure on the Lebanese government so that it undertakes concrete measures aimed at dismantling the movement, both militarily and politically. The announcement by the Lebanese Prime Minister responds directly to these pressures, as well as to those formulated by certain chancelleries, notably the United States, and to a lesser extent France and Saudi Arabia, involved in the Lebanese file.

It also confirms that Hezbollah is more isolated than ever on the Lebanese political scene. Its alliance with the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, already considerably weakened by the 2024 war, now appears durably compromised. Even more significantly, its historic partnership with Amal, the other Lebanese Shiite party, is showing signs of strain. Although it has so far refrained from publicly expressing criticism, the approval by its ministers of the decision to ban the militia’s activities reflects a certain unease within the “Shiite tandem”. Hezbollah knows itself to be increasingly marginalised and is attempting to maintain an institutional presence. During the cabinet meeting of 3 March, its ministers chose to remain present while expressing their reservations.

As regards the Lebanese army, major uncertainties weigh on its capacity to carry out the disarmament process. On orders from the executive, it withdrew from part of the South following the Israeli response and positioned itself at various points along the roads linking the region to Beirut in order to arrest armed individuals. But these measures remain limited for the time being, due to its weak capabilities in terms of equipment and manpower. Likewise, the request to disarm “by all means” is generating a certain degree of concern among the military command, which quite rightly fears the devastating consequences for Lebanon’s internal balance of a direct confrontation between the army and citizens affiliated with Hezbollah.

Rodolphe Haykal, the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), moreover openly expressed his scepticism during the Council of Ministers. On 7 March, he held an exceptional meeting bringing together senior officers, on the sidelines of which he insisted on the importance of ending the Israeli aggression, while avoiding naming Hezbollah. This position has placed him at the centre of criticism, with reports even mentioning the possible dismissal of the military chief. In Lebanon, the army is the guarantor of civil peace and it still remembers the painful episode of 6 February 1984, when it was ordered to bombard the southern suburbs and confront Amal militiamen, triggering a wave of desertions among Shiite soldiers that profoundly affected the institution at a time when the country was immersed in civil war.

The accusations directed at the head of the Lebanese army are fuelling rhetoric relayed from Tel Aviv denouncing the ineffectiveness of the troops and their alleged “collaboration” with Hezbollah. This discourse finds a certain resonance in the United States, which remains the principal supplier of the LAF. In early February, while Rodolphe Haykal was visiting Washington, a Congressional hearing involving researchers from the neoconservative think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy highlighted the desire of the American administration to condition its aid to the Lebanese army on its results in Hezbollah’s disarmament. Some even went so far as to criticise the institution’s choice to “prioritise stability over sovereignty”.

As mediation attempts emerge, particularly under the impetus of France, are initiatives in favour of a ceasefire likely to succeed in the short term?

France, guarantor of the 2024 cessation of hostilities agreement and a historic actor in Lebanon, is positioning itself on the front line in an attempt to establish a ceasefire. While Paris could until now claim to maintain direct communication with Hezbollah, this channel now appears to have been broken, limiting its mediation capacity. In this context, the French initiative relies on the proposal advanced by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who advocates a halt to Israeli strikes, increased aid to the Lebanese army in order to enable it to deploy across the entire territory, with a view to launching a process of “direct” negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv. Discussions are reportedly underway in Lebanon with a view to forming a delegation including representatives of the country’s four major communities (Christian, Sunni, Druze and Shiite), although the appointment of the Shiite figure intended to sit on it remains blocked.

But the principal actors still need to be persuaded to sit around the negotiating table, which for the moment appears impossible. Firstly, Hezbollah refuses to engage in talks. The movement has drawn the following conclusion: the diplomatic route provided it with no guarantees that Israel would halt its aggression. Its Secretary-General Naïm Qassem recently declared that diplomacy had failed and that “a long confrontation” should be expected. Israel, for its part, has still not responded to the Franco-Lebanese initiative and considers that it possesses sufficient leverage not yet to engage in discussions. Its Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has moreover directly threatened the Lebanese state with strikes against its infrastructure should it fail to act against Hezbollah.

Finally, the great unknown remains the involvement of the United States. In recent months, American special envoys to Lebanon have followed one another in succession, a sign of a form of impatience within the American administration towards the Lebanese executive. According to the media outlet Axios, the Lebanese authorities reportedly approached the American administration in order to begin direct negotiations with Israel, before receiving a refusal from former special envoy Tom Barrack, now in charge of the Syrian file.

Be that as it may, the options currently being placed on the table appear to suffer from the same limitations as the 2024 agreement. The latter forced Lebanon to accept a ceasefire whose external guarantors proved incapable of putting an end to Israeli violations, or were even directly aligned with its strategic interests, while the United Nations framework was progressively marginalised. Today, mediation initiatives aim to establish direct negotiations between Tel Aviv and Beirut, despite an asymmetric balance of power and the absence of control by the Lebanese authorities over Hezbollah’s actions. Beirut therefore risks once again finding itself compelled to negotiate under fire, without any real capacity to implement Israeli demands, while Israel would have little incentive to make concessions and would continue to exploit its military advantage.