Is a war between Israel and Hezbollah brewing in Syria?

For the duration of the war in Syria, Israel has kept itself at arm’s length from the conflict there, and for very good reasons. Israeli strategists have admitted, mainly in private, that events over the border in the last six years have been a humbling experience for the country.

It became instantly apparent for Israel that even as one of the major military powers in the region, it could not impact the unfolding events in Syria despite the long-term security implications.

In Israel’s nearly seven decades of existence, it has been prone to proactive and pre-emptive foreign and military policies, so its more recent inability to react similarly has been frustrating. Being a spectator to radical changes in a neighboring country is not in Israel’s comfort zone.

However, the policy of non-intervention in Syria carried two clear red lines from the start of the bloodshed there. One of these was restrained military retaliation to every crossfire from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights to the Israeli-occupied side. The other, of greater concern to Israel, was to intercept the transfer of sophisticated “game-changing” weapons from Syria to the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah.

These two parameters of maintaining Israeli interests were pursued methodically. Most recently, the Lebanese television channel Al-Jadeed reported that Israeli fighter planes attacked an arms convoy last week on the outskirts of Damascus.

For Israeli strategists, Hezbollah is seen as a major strategic threat, second only to a nuclear Iran, and to an extent Hamas in Gaza. The two threats of Iran’s aggressive regional policy and that of Hezbollah are for Israel two sides of the same coin. The experience of 10 years ago, when a constant barrage of rockets hit northern Israel, left a lasting scar. It remains in the collective memory that the 34 days of conflict achieved very little.

Worse, it exposed the vulnerability of northern Israel, which was vacated by many of its residents. Inflicting disproportionate casualties and destruction not only on Hezbollah but on many innocent Lebanese citizens and the country’s infrastructure was more an angry reaction than a thought-through strategy. In hindsight, it did not inflict irreversible damage on Hezbollah, but it still acted as a long-term deterrence. 

To make things worse, Hezbollah has considerably increased its capabilities since 2006. It is estimated to have improved its missile and rocket capabilities in numbers, range and accuracy. It possesses more than 100,000 missiles and rockets, mainly supplied by Iran and Syria.

Hence it is unsurprising that the working assumption among Israel’s security forces is that another round of hostilities with Hezbollah would be more painful than ever and result in many civilian casualties. Both sides have little interest in initiating another round of violence, but both maintain highly threatening language toward one another.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who hardly dares to leave his hideout, persistently threatens to hit strategic targets, including Haifa’s ammonia storage and the nuclear reactor in Dimona. In return, the head of Israel’s military intelligence warned Hezbollah that harming Israeli population centers would lead to Lebanon becoming “a country of refugees that will have difficultly recovering.”

For now, military engagement is mainly taking place in Syria, via Israeli attacks on weapons and ammunition convoys en route to Lebanon, and by extrajudicial killings of senior Hezbollah operatives such as Jihad Mughniyeh and Samir Qantar. Thus far, this military activity has not resulted in escalation or retaliation, but there is the danger that Israel may be sucked into the quagmire of Syria.

Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is a double-edged sword. On the one hand its fighters are accumulating military experience, but on the other hand it has lost around 1,700 fighters and more than 7,000 have been injured. Furthermore, fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad erodes much of Hezbollah’s support in Lebanon.

In the face of the horrific carnage in Syria and its disintegration, Israel is left uncertain as to what the most beneficial outcome would be for the conflict within the borders of its northeast neighbor. From a military perspective, Syria’s fragmentation means that the country will not pose any serious military challenge to Israel in the foreseeable future.

Yet the free-for-all situation in Syria contains its own dangers of the ascendency of extremely hostile elements to Israel, hence the country’s preference to see the Assad regime stay in power. This, nonetheless, also comes with a price for Israel, with Iran’s presence and that of Hezbollah too close for comfort to its borders.

Despite the fact that neither side is interested in direct confrontation, there is always a chance that this could change rapidly if one or both were to provoke the other beyond a certain threshold. 

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media.