Forecasting Hezbollah’s Next Move
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, and reportedly Hamas, on Tuesday and Wednesday mark a significant escalation in the Gaza war and bring Israel and Iran’s “axis of resistance” closer to all-out war than at any time since the October 7 Hamas attack. An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut, in response to an attack (reportedly by Hezbollah, although the militant group denied it) on an Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday that killed twelve children and teenagers. On Wednesday, a detonation by an explosive device, reportedly by Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
The world is now watching how Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran will respond to such attacks. Iran has reportedly vowed a direct retaliation to Haniyeh’s assassination. Yesterday, Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah indicated that Hezbollah is probing “a studied response” in the next few days to the killing of Shukr and what he characterized as Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
Understanding the information warfare and narratives of “purported” deterrence conducted by Hezbollah against Israel and the United States in the leading up to Israel’s recent attacks is critical since it may help provide insight into the nature of Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s attack. Such information warfare was in response to Israel’s persistent warning of a major military operation against the militant group. In particular, the scale of Hezbollah’s response, given its geostrategic proximity to Israel—and especially if it is coordinated with a direct attack by Iran—would determine if the low-level conflict will slide into a full-scale war.
Since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire along the Lebanon-Israel border. The conflict has increasingly taken an escalatory path in recent weeks. In response to the continuous elimination of many of its senior commanders by targeted Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has been more lately racketing up rocket and drone attacks into northern Israel, mainly targeting what it describes as Israeli military sites, including key intelligence systems and reconnaissance centers. More aggravatingly, Hezbollah released in June and July a series of drone footage that showed what it described as detailed aerial views of Israeli military and civilian targets, including bases, infrastructure, and border areas in northern Israel. Only a few hours after the release of the first footage, Israel’s military approved plans for an all-out offensive into Lebanon. The tit-for-tat between Israel and Hezbollah took a turn for the worse when a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights killed twelve children and teenagers.
In the lead-up to the recent attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas in Beirut and Tehran, Hezbollah’s information operation, consisting of various arguments, claimed that the group is succeeding in establishing deterrence against Israel by achieving escalation dominance. Clearly, the primary goal of this rhetoric was to deter Israel from carrying out a military offensive into Lebanon. But it was also aimed at the Lebanese public, which is increasingly growing fearful of the prospect of a full-scale war with Israel that may bring devastation to Lebanon, to convince them that Hezbollah’s initial decision to join the Gaza war, as well as its continuous escalatory attacks against Israel are pre-emptive in nature and are succeeding at preventing Israel from launching a major war against Lebanon.
Pro-Hezbollah commentary and media reports continued to proliferate in recent weeks, communicating the narrative that Hezbollah has gained the upper hand in establishing escalation dominance over Israel. One key argument of such claimed deterrence is the narrative surrounding the pace of the conflict between the militant group and Israel since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. According to some commentators, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has consisted of three phases, with Hezbollah at each juncture controlling the pace of the combat.
The first phase encompassed the cross-border clashes, which were confined to an area of seven kilometers. The second phase, framed as the deterrence stage, occurred following the assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Arouri by an Israeli drone strike in Beirut in January when Hezbollah started targeting what it describes as strategic locations. The third phase came after the killing of Hezbollah senior commander Taleb Abdallah by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon in June, with Hezbollah intensifying its rocket attacks and expanding the scope of the combat to thirty-five kilometers to reach deeper into Israel. Such a narrative portrays a deterred Israel, with its main ally, the United States, seeking to de-escalate the conflict primarily to protect Israel.
Another layer of this narrative is rhetoric surrounding Hezbollah’s drone attacks against Israel, framed as escalatory in nature and seeking to establish a purported equivalence between Hezbollah’s drone arsenal and Israel’s superior aircraft. Claims as such describe Hezbollah’s drone warfare as consisting of several escalatory phases, for instance, starting with launching four drones in February to reach over a hundred drones in June. Further commentary cited U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein’s June visit to Lebanon, claiming that he requested Hezbollah to bring Hezbollah’s drone attacks back to a few a month in an effort to curb the intensity of the conflict.
Perhaps a peak narrative example of the purported effectiveness of Hezbollah’s drone warfare is pro-Hezbollah media commentary, reports, and social media comments surrounding the above-mentioned drone videos that flew over the Israeli city of Haifa and the Golan Heights. The first part, a nine-minute video dubbed “Hudhud,” claims to film residential areas in Haifa, the Haifa port, a naval base, and aerial defense systems like the Iron Dome and David’s Sling. The second part, also nine minutes, claims to show aerial views of Israeli military and intelligence bases in the Golan Heights. The third part, more than eight minutes, is said to show an Israeli airbase in the north.
The release of such footage has been framed by pro-Hezbollah commentators as mounting proof of Hezbollah’s penetration of Israel’s intelligence capabilities and as part of Hezbollah’s messaging to the Israeli military that Hezbollah possesses a bank of strategic targets that the group will strike firsthand should Israel launch an operation into Lebanon. Some analysts went on to compare Hezbollah’s purported drone capabilities to Israel’s airforce power in the event of a major war. Another commentator even framed such footage as demonstrating Hezbollah’s spying superiority over Israel, arguing that Hezbollah has shown capabilities of gathering intelligence on critical strategic targets. At the same time, Israel has only succeeded to date in targeting Hezbollah’s personnel and commanders. Overall, most commentators, apparently as part of coordinated messaging, purported that the public release of the drone footage aims to deter Israel while showing that Hezbollah is ready for combat.
On the whole, commentary about the drone footage appears to borrow and endorse arguments (and word selection) made by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in his speech in June following the release of Hudhud footage. Nasrallah described the drone footage as a “comprehensive and real bank of targets” inside Israel, the targeting of which would destabilize the foundations of Israel. On a broader level, this speech and additional following speeches by Nasrallah have since been portrayed by various pro-Hezbollah commentaries and reporting, primarily by the Iranian-aligned Al-Mayadeen news outlet, as strategically designed to deter Israel from launching a major operation into Lebanon. Mainly, the rationale behind such “strategic deterrence” characterization was that the more Hezbollah intensifies its rhetoric of war, the more it serves its strategic deterrence purposes.
Further rhetoric portraying a deterred Israel with the main argument that this is due to Hezbollah’s newly shown missile and drone capabilities has been presented by Nasrallah himself in a recent speech almost three weeks ago commemorating the death of the senior Hezbollah commander Muhammad Nimah Nasser. Nasrallah put forward two claims in this regard. First, he claimed that Hezbollah’s readiness for war had been evidenced by its unrestrained response to the killing of its commanders by Israeli strikes, revealing more of its missile and drone capabilities and each time targeting a broader range of sensitive targets. He further contended that after coming upon Hezbollah’s newly divulged fighting capabilities, statements by Israeli military officials show a reduced objective of war against Lebanon. Instead, they now refer to limited operations in Southern Lebanon, like pushing Radwan forces beyond the Litani River, falling short of previous intentions.
In more combative speeches more than two weeks ago commemorating Ashura, Nasrallah even broadened the argument and went far to describe a declining Israel. For what appears to be the first such characterization since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, he made references to religious scriptures, including Jewish texts, to argue Israel is on the brink of collapse—notably, such characterizations by Nasrallah mirror and reiterate ones made by Hamas’ military spokesman, Abu Obaida. Nasrallah portrayed an Israel largely plagued by soldiers’ deaths and injuries and large shortages of weapons and munition, claiming as evidence statements made by Israeli officials and media reports. In further elaborating on the axis’ alleged military achievements, he stressed the asymmetric nature of the axis’ warfare along with Shia doctrine and its emphasis on martyrdom.
Broadly, Iran’s axis of resistance was also engaged in information warfare aimed at deterring Israel from launching a military offensive into Lebanon. As reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an anonymous commander from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq confirmed to Western media that military advisers had been sent to Lebanon to help Hezbollah. Iranian-backed officials also indicated that thousands of fighters from across the Middle East are ready to join the conflict. Former IRGC Commander Mohsen Rezaei warned on July 28 that a war between Israel and Hezbollah would be more dangerous for Israel than its conflict with Hamas. Commentary by Lebanese analysts cites (unspecified) reports that thousands of militia members from the Houthis, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and the Iran-backed Afghani and Pakistani Shia militant groups, the Fatemiyoun and Zainebiyoun Brigades, have already joined or are ready to join Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in an eventual war with Israel. Not surprisingly, Iranian media has readily picked up the saga of the Hudhud drone and amplified its messaging to serve its psychological warfare machine.
On a political level, the above-described information war has also been occurring against the backdrop of continuous Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks in Qatar, which appear now to be at risk. Reports indicate that Hezbollah and Hamas continue to discuss and coordinate around Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks and battlefield developments in Gaza. In almost all his speeches that coincided with ongoing Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks, Nasrallah explicitly made references to the Gaza negotiations while reiterating conditioning the end of Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
In light of Israel’s recent attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas, the argument that Hezbollah’s escalatory attacks and the accompanying heightened rhetoric serve deterrence purposes against Israel now appears to be in doubt. As mentioned above, Nasrallah said in his speech yesterday that Hezbollah will deliver a powerful strike against Israel in the next few days, aside from the routine cross-border attacks that will resume the following day after his speech. To maintain credibility, Hezbollah’s remaining and most valid option is to launch an attack against Israeli military and civilian targets (or similar targets) that its series of drone footage has claimed to show. Such an attack will most likely throw the region into a full-blown war.
Rany Ballout is a New York-based political risk and due diligence analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East. He holds a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Montreal in Canada and a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Uppsala University in Sweden.
Image: Mohammad Kassir / Shutterstock.com.