Encouraging developments in the ongoing negotiations in Doha for an agreement between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire and hostage release were accompanied on July 10 by a video statement by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, in which he said that in the event of a successful outcome, with the conclusion of the conflict in Gaza, the Lebanese front will also automatically cease all hostilities toward Israel, without the need for any negotiations.
Nasrallah affirmed how Hezbollah is achieving the goals it set with the launch of its campaign against Israeli forces, wearing down its capacity and helping to exert strong pressure aimed at achieving the outcome of a ceasefire, and particularly recalled how Hezbollah’s action on northern Israel helped convince the Tel Aviv government of the need to identify the margins for a possible agreement with Hamas, while also arguing that the action carried out on the southern Lebanon side was completely independent of any form of coordination with the Palestinian Islamist militias.
At the same time, Hezbollah’s secretary general added how the negotiations conducted by Hamas are completely independent, although shared by the entire “axis of resistance,” and that whatever decision is deemed suitable by the Palestinian forces, this will automatically be so for the regional alliance front as well.
The statements by the Secretary General of the Lebanese Shiite party-militia follow by a few days his meeting with the Hamas delegation led by the head of international relations, Khalil al-Hayya, and at a stage marked by growing optimism over the possibility of an agreement in Doha and Cairo between Israeli and Palestinian delegates for a cease-fire and hostage release.
At the same time, however, Hassan Nasrallah has made no secret of the fact that he believes it is possible that, even in the event of a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel may in any case decide to launch a military operation against South Lebanon, adding in his televised address that Hezbollah will not tolerate any attack against the country by the Israelis, even if an agreement in Gaza will be inked.
Statements that seem geared to provide a rebuttal to those expressed by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who on July 7 had argued in an interview with the local press how Israel intends to continue to fight and do what it deems necessary to achieve the results it has set in the confrontation with Hezbollah, even in constancy of an agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza.
New attacks by Hezbollah had followed on July 10 against an Israeli base in the Golan Heights, officially in retaliation for the attacks conducted by Israel the previous day against targets traceable to Lebanese Shiite militias along the road linking Beirut to Damascus, where a former Nasrallah bodyguard, Yasser Qarnabash, was reportedly killed, according to some local press sources.
A further Israeli attack had instead followed on the same July 10, when according to the IDF a group of Hezbollah members were reportedly shot as they entered a home in the village of Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon, again provoking in retaliation the firing of some 30 rockets at unspecified targets in northern Galilee.
It is a sequence of actions and responses on both sides that has now become part of the daily routine in southern Lebanon and northern areas of Israel, largely evacuated for security reasons, with the constant risk of triggering a broader conflict dynamic that none of the actors, however, seems to really wish for, despite the constant exchanges of fire and the fiery tones of political rhetoric.
Even Hassan Nasrallah’s message of July 10, in this way, seems to fit into the groove of a verbal dynamic aimed at demonstrating a willingness not to provoke escalation, and above all, a willingness to consider the crisis with Israel closed once the Gaza conflict should finally be characterized by a cease-fire. A rather fragile wish, however, since it is linked on the one hand to the interest of Iran and the axis of resistance alliance in keeping the state of regional tension active in order to exert constant pressure on Israel, and on the other hand to the need for Hezbollah to honor its commitments within the axis without crossing that uncertain boundary that could on the contrary convince Israel of the need to launch a massive military operation against the Lebanese Shiite militias in order to eradicate their presence along a vast area on the border between the two countries.
A scenario that could prove to be extremely dangerous for both Hezbollah and Israel, and certainly catastrophic for the stability of Lebanon, where the risk of sectarian clashes and the ultimate collapse of fragile institutions could lead toward a more widespread form of conflict.
