The hidden rules established in 1993 kept the Israel-Hezbollah conflict within the framework, without escalating into a full-scale war.
The war between Israel and Hamas is one of the issues attracting world attention in the Middle East. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, causing great casualties and taking hostages. The Israeli army immediately launched a response campaign in the Gaza Strip.
In parallel with the Gaza war, Lebanese Hezbollah forces and the Israeli army also fought across the border almost every day. Hezbollah announced an attack on Israel to show solidarity with the people in the Gaza Strip. The violence has forced tens of thousands of people on both sides to evacuate.
Fighting at the Israel-Lebanon border has recently continued to increase. Hezbollah uses precision weapons to conduct raids deep within Israeli territory. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have repeatedly warned that Lebanon’s capital Beirut could suffer the same fate as Gaza if Hezbollah opens a front to target the country. The Israel Defense Forces said in early April that they had completed the preparations for war on the border with Lebanon.
However, experts say the situation is unlikely to explode into a total war. There have been “hidden rules” between Israel and Hezbollah for nearly three decades. The two sides mostly maintain restraint, but the risk of a more serious conflict cannot be completely ruled out.
Location Israel and Lebanon. Graphics: AFP
Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem once mentioned a “tacit agreement” with Israel in an interview with NBC News in May.
“We will not accept Israel’s violation of the established rules of engagement in southern Lebanon. If Israel increases its raids, we will do the same,” Mr. Qassem said. “On our part, we consider the level of conflict and the firepower used to be an appropriate contribution to support Gaza and Palestine.”
Israel launched a campaign deep into Lebanese territory to deal with Palestinian gunmen in that country in the 1970s. Israeli forces withdrew and established a “security buffer zone” about 20 km wide in southern Lebanon in 1985. The “security buffer zone” is patrolled by the Israeli army, to ensure that armed groups in Lebanon do not raid the border area.
The above developments contributed to the formation of Hezbollah, Arabic for “party of God”, in the early 1980s with support from Iran, to repel Israeli occupation and counter the influence of Israel. the West in the Middle East.
After the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war ended, Hezbollah was the only armed group that did not disarm. The group considers Israel its “archenemy”, constantly raiding its opponents’ border towns.
In 1993, Israel launched Operation Crime, airstrikes and shelling in southern Lebanon in response to Hezbollah killing five soldiers. The operation left nearly 120 Lebanese civilians dead and more than 500 injured.
Then-US Secretary of State Warren Christopher mediated to end the fighting. Israel and Hezbollah have set hidden rules to de-escalate tensions. Israel agreed not to target civilians in Lebanon, and Hezbollah pledged not to attack Israel.
These rules were informal, but established important precedents. Israel accepts resistance from Hezbollah to the occupation, but must remain outside Israel’s borders. Three years later, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel flared up again. The implicit rules were translated into written form, in the Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Memorandum.
The document does not directly mention Hezbollah, only stating that “Lebanese armed groups” will not attack Israel, while Israel “will not fire any weapons against civilians or civilian targets in Lebanon”. . A monitoring group consisting of representatives from five countries, the US, France, Syria, Israel and Lebanon, was established to monitor the situation.
Hezbollah members during an exercise in Aaramta, southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel in May 2023. Image: Reuters
The rules established the framework for conflict between Lebanon and Israel until Israel’s complete withdrawal from its neighbor in 2000. The two sides communicated regularly even while fighting, sometimes apologizing for their actions. confusion and excess.
The 2006 fight showed both sides the consequences of violating the unspoken rules. Hezbollah’s cross-border raid left three Israeli soldiers dead and took hostages. Israel launched a ground campaign in response. Fighting at that time left more than 1,200 people dead in Lebanon and 160 people dead in Israel.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted he made a miscalculation in sparking the war.
Hezbollah has attacked Israel almost every day since the Gaza war broke out. The Israeli military’s casualty statistics website recorded two people killed by Hezbollah rockets. Israeli officials also evacuated about 60,000 people from more than 40 residential areas in the north of the country. On the Lebanese side, about 74,500 people were displaced, according to the World Organization for Migration (IOM).
Observers say that Hezbollah’s limited conflict with Israel is not only intended to show solidarity with Hamas.
“Hezbollah benefits from the rules of engagement. They allow Hezbollah to present itself as a ‘resistance’ force, while avoiding a full-scale war with Israel, a development that would affect the group’s position in Lebanon and Syria,” said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Center for the Middle East, headquartered in Lebanon.
The fact that Hezbollah challenged Israel and still stood firm also damaged Tel Aviv’s strong image in the international arena, according to Matthew Levitt, an expert on Muslim groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, US headquarters. “The rules, although vague and inconsistent, help them achieve their goals at a manageable cost.”
“They don’t need to take a hill and hold on. They don’t need to blow up a base,” Levitt said. “In the end, they can still declare victory, because they were not destroyed, like in 2006.”