Israel is gearing up to launch a major attack on Lebanon after a deadly rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but it is unlikely to want to trigger an all-out war with Hezbollah, analysts say.
Israel blames the Lebanese armed group for firing a projectile on Saturday that hit a football pitch and killed 12 children and young people in the Druze town of Majdal Shams.
While Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack, Israel has said the group has crossed a “red line” and will pay a “heavy price” for the incident.
“[The projectile] was clearly a mistake, and Hezbollah is not interested in targeting Druze, but Hezbollah was hitting Israeli positions about 2.5km [1.5 miles] away from Majdal Shams, so it is possible that it made a targeting error,” said Nicholas Blanford, an expert on Hezbollah with the Atlantic Council think tank.
Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting a low-scale conflict since the Hamas-led attacks on communities and military outposts in southern Israel on October 7. Hezbollah has repeatedly said it would end attacks on Israel if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians.
So what does the attack in the Golan Heights mean for a possible escalation between Hezbollah and Israel?
Drumming up support
Israel appears to be using the attack to rally domestic and international support for a major strike on Lebanon, according to analysts.
On Israel’s official X page, an image of the Israeli and Druze flags was posted with the caption: “We are all Druze.”
Another post read, “They take babies hostage. They shoot rockets at homes. Hezbollah, Hamas the Houthis. They are all Iran.”
The three groups are among those in the region that are aligned with Iran. While they are described as being part of an Iran-backed “axis of resistance”, each group grew out of conflicts specific to its respective context and has its own interests.
After the Majdal Shams attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday postponed the departure of 150 sick and wounded children in Gaza who were supposed to receive medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates, according to local Israeli media.
On X, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel called the delay “cruel and dangerous” and said the deaths of the 12 young people in Majdal Shams “must not be exploited for cynical political motives”.
It continued: “This evacuation delay once more exposes Israel’s disregard for the lives of children and innocent civilians in Gaza. Vengeance is not a legitimate policy.”
But even as Israel continues to devastate Gaza, analysts believe it will try to minimise civilian casualties with its strike on Lebanon out of fear of sparking a broader conflict that it can’t contain.
“The fact that the victims [in Majdal Shams] were all children and teenagers gives them an emotional [weight], but I don’t think the Israelis want to escalate,” Blanford told Al Jazeera.
‘Now is not the time’
Israel’s top army generals are increasingly at odds with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza and the conflict against Hezbollah in Lebanon. In June, Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said, “Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.”
Netanyahu has long said that Israel’s goal in Gaza is to eradicate the armed group.
Waging an all-out war against Hezbollah, a force that many analysts consider Israel’s toughest foe in the region, is an even taller task, said Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel-Palestine analyst for the International Crisis Group.
“I think Israelis overall believe that at some point Israel and Hezbollah will have a major war, but the question is when and how and under what conditions,” she told Al Jazeera.
“[Most] Israelis believe now is not the time,” she added.
Israel’s army is already struggling to muster enough soldiers to continue its war on Gaza. Many reservists are not reporting for duty while Israel has also reported shortages of military equipment and munitions.
The United States has also signalled it does not want to see a wider conflict.
Zonszein said Netanyahu – or Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who may have more influence on a decision to go to war – don’t want an all-out war. But, she said, if they think they can conduct a major strike on Lebanon without triggering a significant escalation, they might be underestimating the risks.
“The entire thing is extremely problematic, and the most responsible and sensible thing is to get a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, which would de-escalate things immediately [on Israel’s border with Lebanon] in the north,” Zonszein said.
Hezbollah’s options
Hezbollah will likely show some restraint to a major Israeli strike but would aim to strike back “proportionately,” Blanford said.
He noted that from Hezbollah’s perspective, it has done nothing wrong to warrant an escalation from Israel and its response will depend on Israel’s strike.
Israel, he said, could target senior Hezbollah commanders or even strike Dahiya, a Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold.
“If Israel were to hit Dahiya, then it wouldn’t surprise me if Hezbollah responded with one or two missiles going to [the Israeli city] Haifa [for example]. But the response would be proportionate with the overall goal of dialling things down,” he told Al Jazeera.
Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University, added that Hezbollah’s long-term strategy remains tied to Gaza and the group is unlikely to sign a ceasefire agreement with Israel until a settlement is reached there.
He believes Hezbollah may already be preparing for a post-conflict scenario by agreeing to abide by United Nations Resolution 1701, which was passed after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and calls for a demilitarised zone between the Blue Line and the Litani River.
The former is a demarcation line that divides Lebanon from Israel and the Golan Heights while the latter is a large river that flows south towards the Lebanon-Israeli border.
“Both Hezbollah and Israel are likely to claim victory in any subsequent arrangement to maintain their respective domestic support and deter further escalation,” Salamey told Al Jazeera.