Ground operation targeting Hezbollah widens a regional war and threatens to strain Israel’s military resources
Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon opens a new front in a widening Middle East war, expanding its campaign against Iran by moving against one of its most powerful regional allies, Hezbollah, and stretching its military across an unprecedented number of conflict zones.
Israel said on Monday that it launched a ground operation in a southern swath of Lebanon and was prepared for a prolonged campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal and other international outlets. Israel’s defense minister said Lebanese residents will be unable to return to the area until Israel determines it has removed the threat posed by Hezbollah after it fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel last week, surprising some who believed the group was too weakened from previous rounds of fighting to launch a fresh attack.
The defense minister, Israel Katz, said the operation would be similar to the Israeli campaign in Gaza, where some cities were almost entirely flattened, and his comments suggest Israeli troops could hold on to a chunk of Lebanese territory for an indefinite period.
Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Israel has taken an increasingly aggressive stance against its neighbors, and now holds territory in Syria and occupies more than half of Gaza, in addition to its longstanding occupation of the West Bank.
The new ground campaign raises questions about Israel’s ability to fight on many fronts for a long time, especially with a largely reservist army that is already exhausted by 2½ years of war. It is also already making heavy use of its supply of interceptors, which are essential to defending the home front from rockets and missiles. Its air force has been flying thousands of sorties around the clock over Iran.
The Israeli military can sustain campaigns on multiple fronts in the short term, said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. But there are risks to staying on a constant war footing, like failing to turn its tactical gains into a strategic change in Israel’s position.
“The question remains for the longer term,” Guterman said. “Part of military achievements is leveraging it to gain something.”
Israel still considers Iran its main fighting arena for now. The conflict in Lebanon, however, is expected to continue after the Iran war ends, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The ground maneuver in Lebanon follows an expanding war in the region that has already touched more than a dozen countries. The U.S. has been bombing Iran-aligned militias in Iraq that have targeted American bases and assets there. Iran has been firing missiles and drones at countries across the Gulf, as well as Israel, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tehran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, turning a regional conflict into a global oil crisis. President Trump has asked allies to help reopen the strait.
Israel’s decision to launch the first ground operation of the campaign also shows how difficult it is to dislodge groups like Hezbollah, and raises questions about how much Israel and the U.S. can achieve against Iran without putting boots on the ground.
“Neither ground nor air campaigns are effective at defeating an indigenous armed movement,” said Randa Slim, Middle East program director at the Stimson Center think tank. “The Americans tried this in Afghanistan and failed. The Israelis have been attempting it in Lebanon since 1982 against Hezbollah and equally failed.”
Israel’s campaign against Iran also involves defeating its web of allied militias, called the axis of resistance, which includes Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthis. After the initial Oct. 7 attack, Iran’s proxy strategy appeared to be working.
Israel has scored tactical victories against the axis, but has yet to solidly defeat any of them, raising questions about how long it would need to stay in war mode to achieve its goals.
It also has sacrificed diplomatic achievements, like striking an agreement to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah launched a barrage of over 200 projectiles, showing previous assessments had underestimated its capabilities. It continues to fire dozens of missiles and drones daily, according to Israel’s military, upending a cease-fire agreement Israel and Lebanon struck in November 2024, after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and degraded the group’s ranks and missile capabilities.
Since then, Israel has maintained a troop presence on some Lebanese hilltops and hit Lebanon more than 2,000 times, while the Lebanese government also worked to disarm Hezbollah, sometimes with the help of Israeli intelligence.
Lebanon’s government, following Hezbollah’s initial rocket launches against Israel this month, moved to ban the group’s military activities.
Despite those efforts, Israeli officials assess that hundreds of elite Hezbollah fighters were able to go south of the Litani River and join up with other Hezbollah units there after the war with Iran began. They also believe that the group maintains the ability to coordinate barrages with Iran.
“The November agreement didn’t prove itself,” said Eliezer Marum, a former commander of the Israeli Navy. “We thought we were doing a good job. It turns out Hezbollah recovered and organized a large amount of rockets.”
Israel is now responding with heavy fire, pounding areas of Lebanon with traditional Hezbollah influence, like Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also parts of central Beirut and its touristy corniche. More than 800 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the country’s health ministry, a figure that doesn’t distinguish between militants and combatants.
Nearly a million people living in Lebanon are displaced, according to the United Nations. Several Israeli strikes in central Beirut hit busy population centers outside of Hezbollah’s domain, including a popular hotel near the sea and another at a beachfront where people were sheltering, killing several people, according to Lebanese health authorities. The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment on the strikes.
Efforts to de-escalate the situation are under way. Lebanese leaders are communicating their willingness to hold rare direct government-level talks with Israel, according to officials from Lebanon and France, which would help mediate. Israel is open to the idea, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Some Lebanese living in Hezbollah-controlled areas said in interviews that they were frustrated that the group only attacked Israel after Iran’s supreme leader was killed. They said they are angry that Hezbollah stepped in to defend a foreign government and not its own people.
“Hezbollah is willing to go all the way to defend Iran, even if that means suicide, and even if that means Lebanon is going to be destroyed,” said Samy Gemayel, the head of a historically Christian Lebanese political party opposed to Hezbollah.