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Lebanon is teetering on the edge of state collapse as an escalating Israeli military campaign compounds years of political dysfunction, economic meltdown, and humanitarian crisis, according to a sweeping analysis by Maha Yahya, Director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Yahya warns that Israel's intensifying assault — launched in response to Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks following the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — is pushing the country past its breaking point. "Israel is using the war and Hezbollah's provocations to justify a much larger — and potentially devastating — assault on Lebanon itself," Yahya writes.
Since early March, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes across Lebanon, targeting not only the south but also Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced a "targeted ground operation" into southern Lebanon, drawing direct comparisons to the campaign in Gaza. Over a million people — predominantly Shiites — have been displaced, and more than 100 towns and villages have received evacuation orders.
Yahya notes that Israel's campaign is unfolding in a country already reeling from a 90 percent currency collapse that began in 2019, a devastating 2020 port explosion that caused over $8 billion in damage, and deep political gridlock. A new government led by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam took office in February 2025 with promises of reform, but those ambitions have been overtaken by the conflict.
Despite the destruction, Hezbollah remains defiant, portraying the war as "an existential communal struggle," Yahya observes. The group has refused to disarm, and Iran continues to provide financial and military support. Meanwhile, Lebanon's government has taken historic steps, including banning Hezbollah's military activities and expelling Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — measures that Yahya describes as unprecedented but insufficient without international backing.
Yahya is particularly critical of Israeli maximalism, noting that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly called for annexing territory south of the Litani River. "If Israel's aim was really to just destroy Hezbollah and bring about peace, its current campaign will achieve the opposite," she argues, warning that extensive bombings and expansionist rhetoric only reinforce Hezbollah's narrative.
The analysis calls urgently on the United States, European powers, and regional states to "rein in Israel's military expansionism" and support Lebanon's reform-minded government. "There is now a window of opportunity to work with Lebanon's leaders," Yahya concludes, "but this window will soon close if Israel stays its aggressive course."
Illustration: Perplexity