The escalating roar of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon has begun to drown out the political movement that once buzzed through Beirut, now fading under a distinctly frustrated American tone. Washington’s proposed “re-engineering” of the Lebanese scene—aimed fundamentally at disarming Hezbollah and reshaping the balance of power—has stalled, its levers failing to generate the decisive breakthrough long promised.
While Lebanon’s official position—voiced by President Joseph Aoun—shows less inclination to be swept along by American projections for the country’s future, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has leaned toward a sharper approach on the security file. Yet he has not succeeded in overcoming the resistance of state institutions—foremost the Lebanese Army—to any direct confrontation with Hezbollah, which has openly declared its readiness for a “Karbala-like confrontation” in defence of its arms.
This internal divergence—coupled with Washington’s inability to force a clean political breach—has nudged the Israeli calculus toward a harsher interventionist course: to re-impose its agenda by force, secure regional ambitions with minimal pushback, and avoid losing what Israeli strategists see as a historic opportunity to refashion the entire landscape.
Rising Threats and Relentless Strikes
In recent weeks, the Lebanese front has witnessed a marked rise in military and political tension. Israeli officials have publicly threatened to widen the aggression, citing what Tel Aviv describes as Hezbollah’s attempts to “rearm and restore its infrastructure.” The rhetoric has been matched by action: a sustained tempo of strikes and assassinations, targeting what the Hebrew media calls “military infrastructure,” alongside civilian areas that have mourned martyrs and tended to the wounded. On the ground, Israeli armour has shown increasing activity near southern border villages.
Amid this escalation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a compact security meeting on Lebanon. Shortly after, Channel Kan 11 quoted an Israeli official claiming Hezbollah is “succeeding in rebuilding its offensive and defensive capabilities and reshaping its military leadership.”
Those claims echo reports—most notably in Yedioth Ahronoth—alleging the recent transfer of hundreds of short-range rockets from Syria into Lebanon, prompting an emergency meeting of Israel’s security cabinet to discuss what it called “repeated violations of the agreement and a return to military build-up.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, meeting UN envoy to Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, warned that Hezbollah—“with Iranian backing”—continues efforts to restore its strength, a “threat to Israel’s security and Lebanon’s future” that Tel Aviv “will not ignore.”
In parallel, Israeli Defence Minister Yisrael Katz issued fresh threats, accusing Hezbollah of “playing with fire,” and attacked President Joseph Aoun for “stalling on his government’s commitments to disarm Hezbollah and expel it from the south.” On X, Katz vowed to intensify enforcement and “permit no threat to northern residents.”
His threats followed one of the deadliest nights in southern Lebanon: an Israeli strike on a civilian car in Kafr Roummane (Nabatieh) martyred four young men and wounded three others, preceded by a raid on Kafrsir that injured a resident. These attacks, coupled with stepped-up ground manoeuvres, reveal a clear Israeli tendency to raise the level of engagement gradually—a low-intensity war now grinding into its third year, marked by hundreds of strikes and a persistent violation of the ceasefire signed in November.
The Failed Bet on Lebanese Infighting
Backed by the policies of the Donald Trump administration, Israeli planners wagered that a combination of intense military pressure and diplomatic coercion would create a “perfect moment” to weaken and subdue Hezbollah—politically and militarily.
Two tracks followed. First, granting the Israeli army near-complete freedom of action across the border, rendering Lebanese territory open to near-daily raids that shattered any attempt to restore normal life in the south. Second, applying concentrated pressure on decision-makers in Beirut via an active American mediation led by envoy Thomas Barak and his deputy Morgan Ortagus, pushing the agenda of disarming Hezbollah to the front of regional manoeuvres.
In Washington and Tel Aviv’s view, this dynamic would either force the Lebanese government to strip Hezbollah of its arms or trigger internal clashes culminating in civil strife. Either outcome, they calculated, would tilt the map in Israel’s favour. Yet the political realities and domestic balances in Lebanon have thus far undone the wager.
Official decisions in Beirut did not translate into enforcement. President Aoun deemed forced disarmament “impractical”, citing the army’s limited capacity to confront a highly organised force like Hezbollah—and warning plainly that any attempt to impose disarmament by force would ignite a civil war.
Arab press, quoting sources close to the presidency, reported that Hezbollah’s declared readiness to defend its arms is no bluff, but a firm position—rendering any official who pursues forced disarmament liable for a catastrophic internal explosion.
Within the Lebanese Army, sources indicated a categorical refusal to impose disarmament by force, to the point that the army commander was said to prefer resignation over spilling Lebanese blood in an internal confrontation.
Hezbollah, for its part, codified this stance in political and military discourse—especially through its Secretary-General—stating that disarmament means “removing our power” and “satisfying the occupation’s demands,” coupled with a clear threat of a “Karbala-like confrontation” if the arms are targeted.
Collectively, these indicators closed the path to engineering civil war. Regional and international actors now grasp that any state-led coercive attempt to strip Hezbollah’s arms lacks a serious horizon, and that pushing Lebanon toward internal conflict is a cost-prohibitive option rejected by most influential parties—local and regional—fully aware that Lebanon would emerge the sole loser, having already paid dearly in a previous civil war.
The “Mechanism” Amid Waves of Expansion and Escalation
Against this volatile backdrop, the United States seeks to expand the mandate of the Committee for the Supervision of the Cessation of Hostilities—known locally as the “Mechanism”—to cover all Lebanese borders, not only the southern frontier with occupied Palestine.
Arab sources link this American push to recent Israeli reports alleging Hezbollah moved advanced weapons shipments via the Syrian border. Under the banner of “border stability,” Washington is pursuing a wider, more intrusive monitoring framework.
But the American effort extends beyond security management. It aims to engineer a new political breach by turning the “Mechanism” into a direct negotiating platform between Lebanon and Israel—paving the way for gradual normalisation or a broader political arrangement mirroring other regional templates.
To that end, Washington proposes including Lebanese civilian-political figures in the committee’s delegation as “experts,” a step many in Lebanon see as a soft bypass of the committee’s traditional military frame.
Thus far, no formal Lebanese approval has been given. Media spin that the Mechanism’s latest session marked a “positive turning point” dissipated quickly after another round of Israeli strikes—including a limited ground incursion and heavy drone overflights above Beirut and its southern suburbs.
The renewed escalation triggered an official outcry in Beirut. President Joseph Aoun ordered the army to repel any Israeli incursion, after occupation soldiers killed a municipal employee in Bleidah with dozens of rounds. Aoun called the incident “part of Israel’s ongoing aggressive practices,” urging the Mechanism to move beyond record-keeping and actively pressure Israel to halt its repeated violations of last November’s agreement.
For its part, the Israeli army claimed it fired after detecting an “immediate threat,” alleging the building where the employee was killed was used by Hezbollah for “terror activities.” Lebanese officials debunked the claim, and local media described it as a transparent pretext for a cold-blooded killing.
Meanwhile, U.S. Special Envoy Thomas Barak—speaking at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain—fired sharp broadsides at Lebanon, labelling it a “failed state.” Citing the collapse of public services and weakened institutions, he claimed Hezbollah is the “de facto state” in the south, asserting that its fighters earn $2,200 per month compared to $275 for a Lebanese soldier, and that the party fields around 40,000 fighters and 20,000 rockets, while the army relies on old jeeps and Kalashnikovs.
Beirut dismissed the remarks as provocative, but they expose the depth of American frustration: intensive shuttle diplomacy has hit a ceiling, delivering no decisive gains—neither security nor political.
Pressure at the Edge of the Blade
Barak’s statements cannot be divorced from the escalating Israeli military and political pressure. Taken together, battlefield moves and diplomatic messaging reflect a compound pressure strategy targeting the Lebanese state in its entirety: forcing a choice between sliding into internal conflict with Hezbollah or bracing for a wider Israeli offensive looming on the horizon.
This fits within a broader project Washington and Tel Aviv are advancing in the region—one Israeli planners argue requires first dismantling Hezbollah’s military capacity to enable similar “arrangements” elsewhere, especially in Gaza.
In this context, Israeli writer Haim Golovnitch argued in Yedioth Ahronoth that the November 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon and the formation of the Salam–Aoun government raised hopes of reconstruction. The blow Hezbollah received then was touted as a “historic window” to rebuild Lebanon and disarm the resistance.
He further claims the United States—via envoys Tom Barak and Morgan Ortagus, coordinated with Saudi envoy Yazid bin Farhan—played a central role in shaping the post-war reality, with Riyadh exerting direct influence on PM Nawaf Salam, who “effectively became its unofficial spokesman on governance and economic files.”
According to this reading, Lebanon slid into a unique model Israeli analysts dub “ceasefire with assassinations”: a veneer of relative calm overlaying near-daily targeted operations. For Tel Aviv, this limited control preserves deterrence. For Hezbollah, it represents a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty, with the party asserting Israel has committed over 5,000 violations since the agreement.
Golovnitch concludes that disarming Hezbollah is now the most urgent file alongside Gaza. Failure to do so would upend the entire design and nearly eliminate the possibility of a parallel step in Gaza. “Without a decision in Lebanon,” he argues, “no decision in Gaza is possible; the two arenas—artificially separated—have re-fused into a single resistance front.”
Seen through that prism, Israel’s latest escalation functions as multi-vector pressure—targeting not only Hezbollah but Lebanon’s entire system, allies and rivals alike. The aim is to push domestic tension to the limit, reorder national priorities, and make disarmament the first item on the state and society’s agenda.
Yet this does not necessarily point to an imminent total war akin to last year’s. The more likely scenario is a policy of graduated firepower: intensifying air raids and widening target banks in the south, thereby increasing human and material costs step by step.
Through this attritional calculus, Israel is betting that the bill of blood and destruction will trigger the political shift it seeks—or propel Lebanese and regional actors to reopen the ceasefire agreement from its foundations, paving the way for a new deal more closely aligned with Israel’s security and political conditions.
