From the moment the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah intervened on 8 October 2023 in support of the resistance in Gaza, the possibility of a full-blown war between Israel and Lebanon has been on the cards. So far, the situation has been kept within bounds, even as military exchanges have escalated in tandem with tensions surrounding negotiations over the long-awaited prisoner swap.

Psychological warfare has played an important part in the skirmishes between Hizbullah and Israel over the past nine months. However, it has become increasingly intense with the mounting signs of an impending confrontation that all concerned want to avoid.

The USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier returned to the Eastern Mediterranean last week to support Israel and deter Hizbullah. The US, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have all instructed their nationals to leave Lebanon. Actions of this sort appear to confirm intelligence assessments that Tel Aviv is about to launch a major offensive against Lebanon.

Both sides have been ratcheting up their rhetoric. In response to threats by Israel to bomb Lebanon back to the Middle Ages, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed a “war beyond anything Israel could possibly imagine” if it attacks Lebanon.

Recently released footage taken by a Hizbullah “Hoopoe” reconnaissance drone was intended to drive the point home. The video demonstrates how the drone managed to penetrate Israeli airspace and capture images of sensitive locations without being detected by aerial-defence systems. The drone returned safely to Lebanon after completing its mission.

Lebanon has not been spared from psychological warfare. Israeli fighter planes have broken the sound barrier in Lebanese airspace, intimating the possibility of airstrikes the length and breadth of the country. The obvious message is that Israel could strike all Lebanese, regardless of their political or religious affiliation, and not just Hizbullah members and the south of the country, thereby driving up the potential domestic costs of Hizbullah’s actions.

One thing that is certain is that any new Israeli-Hizbullah war would not unfold like its predecessors. An Israeli ground incursion of the sort it has used in the past to eliminate resistance forces from the border region is now out of the question. Not only does Hizbullah have the ability to thwart an Israeli ground offensive, but it also has the wherewithal to mount a counteroffensive into northern Israel.

Whether it does so independently or in concert with Palestinian resistance factions based in Lebanon, the multi-pronged operation that Hamas implemented in Israel on 7 October would be a source of inspiration.

Hizbullah began preparing for such a counteroffensive after repelling the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Several reports have emerged since 2008 discussing possible scenarios for the next war, and how the Lebanese resistance movement has been rebuilding its military infrastructure, training troops, and developing strategies for a ground operation into Israel along at least five axes.

Although there has been no specific mention of such scenarios during the current war, Hizbullah has repeatedly hinted that the map of the Middle East would change in the event of a massive Israeli assault against Lebanon.

Hizbullah has also developed its maritime defence capacities. It has the missile capacity to keep Israeli warships out of Lebanese territorial waters, as was already made clear in 2006 when a Hizbullah anti-ship missile struck an Israeli warship off the Lebanese coast, inflicting heavy damage. The group has since acquired modern technologies to strike Israeli vessels such as drones and even torpedoes.

Perhaps this was a main reason why the US has moved its aircraft carriers into the Eastern Mediterranean at least three times since 7 October last year. It wants to signal that the US will protect Israel by blocking Hizbullah’s ability to strike Israeli targets at sea as the group would first have to target US warships, thereby clashing with Washington on top of Tel Aviv.

Clearly, this is a risk Hizbullah could not take independently. It would need an Iranian go-ahead, which is unlikely at a moment when Iran is preoccupied with its internal situation following the death of former president Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash.

Although Nasrallah scoffed at the deployment of a US aircraft carrier strike group in the Eastern Mediterranean in his first address after 7 October, reminding Washington of the large-scale attack that killed 241 marines in October 1983, the presence of such a strike group does hamper Hizbullah’s manoeuvrability against Israeli naval targets.

But if the US warships shift to an offensive posture, for example to help Israel carry out an amphibious landing from the north, rather than from the south where Hizbullah expects Israel to launch a ground operation, a retaliatory strike against US vessels would quickly move up the group’s scale of options, possibly overcoming qualms regarding its potential repercussions on regional security.

Israel still holds some strong cards militarily. Above all, it enjoys superiority in the air and in intelligence. It has been able to strike Hizbullah strongholds and other military infrastructure in the south of Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, and its intelligence operatives have carried out targeted assassinations of Hizbullah field commanders.

Israel may be prolonging the current phase of low intensity fighting for this very purpose: wearing the resistance’s forces down before launching a full-scale invasion. But some experts disagree, arguing that the attrition is not substantial as the Hizbullah military units that are currently engaged in the missile exchanges are different from those the group would deploy in an all-out war, and these remain untouched.

Nor is Israeli superiority as unqualified as it once was. Hizbullah’s fleets of drones have created gaps in Israeli air defences. Drones are light weight, can fly at high altitudes, emit low thermal signals, and are capable of vertical take-offs and landings, all of which make them difficult to detect by Israeli radar.

It could be that the illusion of Israeli military superiority is one of the most powerful psychological weapons in the conflict, not as used against Israel’s adversaries, but as used against itself. If, prey to this illusion, Israel insists on another military adventure into Southern Lebanon, it may find that it has fallen into a self-made trap in its quest to reimpose its aura of military prestige.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly