Echoes Down The Corridor

SOWING THE WIND

Israel began planning a new campaign against Hezbollah in mid-to-late 2025. In November 2024, a cease-fire had ended the yearlong previous war, triggered when the Shiite militant group began firing on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. After several months, however, IDF intelligence assessed that Hezbollah had recovered some of its military capacity and could again pose a serious threat to Israel. The new Lebanese government that took office in February 2025 proposed an aspirational plan to disarm Hezbollah, but it had neither the capacity nor the political will to accomplish this enormous task within an acceptable time frame.

U.S. pressure and preparations for the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sidelined Israel’s Lebanon plans. But soon after the campaign against Iran began, Israel initially believed that it had tricked Hezbollah into violating the cease-fire when the militia fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel to avenge the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It may be truer, however, to say that Israel inadvertently fell into a trap. Throughout 2025, the country had benefited from what some Israeli analysts called a “luxury” cease-fire. It retained the freedom to preempt threats and maintained a military foothold in five points inside Lebanon, while Hezbollah refrained from acting. Israel was ready for Hezbollah to retaliate against Khamenei’s death and saw an opportunity to go on a broader offensive, assuming a manageable task confronting a debilitated group with weaker ties to, and reduced support from, Iran. The opposite happened. Hezbollah’s ties with Tehran are now stronger, and the militia now operates as a dispersed guerrilla organization. Its prior restraint has given way to bold tactics to inflict deadly damage on IDF soldiers in Lebanon and on Israeli northern communities.

Although Israel’s military campaign has suffered from strategic and tactical faults, primarily its vulnerability to updated drone tactics by Hezbollah, it has yielded a string of wins. According to Israel, it has killed nearly 3,000 Hezbollah fighters (including several high-level commanders) since early March. It has destroyed a nearly mile-long Hezbollah tunnel network, seized scores of weapons caches, demolished rocket launchers and terror infrastructure in homes and other facilities in Lebanese villages, and captured land extending up to six miles into southern Lebanon and comprising roughly five percent of the country’s territory. But the offensive has also been terribly costly. More than 3,000 Lebanese, including civilians, have been killed, and over 1.5 million people have been displaced. Hezbollah’s strikes have killed dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians and injured hundreds. They have forced tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel from their homes; those who remain live under a persistent threat.

The truth is that there is no military fix for the problem that Hezbollah poses. A buffer zone can stop cross-border invasions and short-range antitank fire, but it is not effective in preventing rocket attacks or dismantling Hezbollah cells farther north. In mid-March, the IDF’s own reporting showed that most rocket launches affecting northern Israel originated from north of the Litani River, beyond the area that Israel could realistically hold without fully occupying Lebanon.

And a long-term occupation of even southern Lebanon is also dangerous. It would expose Israeli troops to guerrilla harassment and would become a huge domestic liability if casualties mount, as historical precedence demonstrates. Between 1982 and 2000, Israel established a security‑zone presencein Lebanon, hoping to distance Israeli civilians from threats. The resulting protracted occupation cost many soldiers’ and reservists’ lives, drained state resources, and fueled domestic protest and political backlash. That backlash ultimately compelled Israel’s withdrawal in 2000 without having made strategic gains and leaving an ever more popular and capable adversary behind. The approach that did not deliver security in the 1980s and 1990s cannot do so today. In fact, it could be even more counterproductive at a moment when meaningfully weakening Hezbollah or even disarming the group could be possible for the first time in decades.

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

Israel has sustained its aggressive approach to Lebanon, despite its failings, because such an approach has also become the centerpiece of a new, broader security doctrine. Before the shock of October 7, Israel’s doctrine rested on three pillars: create credible deterrence, establish early warning systems for attacks, and build the defenses and military capacity to deliver swift, decisive victories in war. Israel is a small country facing many threats, and its leaders also demonstrated a preference for negotiated arrangements that lengthened intervals between wartimes to allow its military, economy, and populace time to recover. Israel’s defense establishment viewed Hezbollah as its most significant and immediate conventional threat, yet it used a “quiet for quiet” strategy to maintain short-term stability, choosing to absorb low-level provocations rather than launch retaliatory strikes that could trigger a war on the northern border.

On October 7, however, these three security pillars failed. Rather than interrogating those failures and repairing its national security institutions, Israel turned toward a new doctrine based on prevention. This posture sustains a constant cycle of conflict. In addition to continuous raids, displays of airpower, and spectacular special operations, the new doctrine emphasizes forward‑defense measures, a euphemism for seizing territory in neighboring countries by creating buffer zones.

There is no question that Lebanon’s inability to enforce its sovereignty continues to pose a material security threat to Israel. For decades, Lebanon has provided the terrain that external actors used to launch attacks on Israeli territory—from the Palestinian Liberation Organization between 1968 and 1982 to Iran’s proxy Hezbollah today. But Hezbollah is a deeply rooted Lebanese political and social movement as well as an Iranian proxy. It runs social services, builds patronage networks, and sustains a narrative of resistance that fills gaps left by a weak state. Confronting it cannot be done militarily only.

Israel agreed to talks with Lebanon in mid-April only at Trump’s request, after it ignored Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s calls for negotiations in March. As the talks began in April, even as Israel pursued its new doctrine in Lebanon, it tried to signal its openness to peace. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar asserted that his country “has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.” But other high-ranking Israeli officials have sounded a much more expansionist note. On May 26, Homeland Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote, “We need to cut the electricity [to Lebanon], turn off the switch, and make it clear to them: If there is terrorism, you will suffer the consequences.” He also warned that if the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, the area south of the Litani River “will become a security buffer zone for the State of Israel.”

Netanyahu has attempted to have it both ways. In a statement on April 16, he declared that Israel had “an opportunity to forge a historic peace agreement with Lebanon,” only to place maintenance of the buffer zone as a precondition for the talks, saying in the same statement that he intends to remain “in Lebanon in a reinforced security buffer zone. This is not the ‘five points’ that existed before ‘Roaring Lion.’ This is a security buffer that starts at the sea and continues to Mount Dov and the foothills of Mt. Hermon, up to the Syrian border. This is a security strip ten kilometers deep, which is much stronger, more intense, more continuous, and more solid than what we had previously. That is where we are and we are not leaving.” In the six deadly weeks since, his rhetoric has only hardened.

An agreement and a photo op with Aoun could serve Netanyahu’s own narrative that he is delivering Israel “peace through strength.” But the reality is that Netanyahu’s government faces immense public and political pressure to intensify its campaign in Lebanon in response to Hezbollah’s lethal use of first-person-view drones, a highly anticipated tactic for which Israel was embarrassingly ill prepared. Israelis want security, and they dismiss the role that a peace process can play in delivering it. Nahum Barnea, a veteran liberal Israeli columnist, captured the national mood in a recent essay. “Israel does not need recognition from Lebanon,” he wrote. “It does not need peace. It does not need love. It needs only one thing: that no rockets or drones cross the border. Lebanon cannot provide that.”

Ratcheting up operations in Lebanon also serves a political purpose. Every day that Hezbollah or other adversaries dominate the headlines is a day without serious discussion of a national commission of inquiry into the government’s catastrophic mistakes ahead of and on October 7—or of the prime minister’s corruption trial. And the creation of buffer zones gratifies Israel’s extreme, messianic political right wing, which envisions annexing far more land in the Levant; although this group represents a fringe minority of voters, it is a key part of Netanyahu’s coalition. Escalation in Lebanon could also derail a U.S.-Iranian agreement that Israel opposes. As Washington and Tehran struggle to agree on a framework, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on June 1 that talks had paused because of Israeli operations in Lebanon. Tehran has made a cease-fire there a precondition for any broader deal, demanding that Israel halt its attacks and withdraw to its border.

BREAK THE PATTERN

But Netanyahu’s recent bravado masks a real predicament. By pursuing both diplomacy and military operations at the same time, Israel has hamstrung its efforts in both realms. Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to Washington and its representative at the talks, paraphrased the late Yitzhak Rabin by saying that “the focus is now on … reaching a peace treaty as if there’s no Hezbollah and fighting Hezbollah as if there’s no peace treaty. And I think we’re going to accomplish both.” At this rate, neither objective will be achievable.

Ordinary Israelis know that the current approach does not improve their security in the long run. An April 26 Institute for National Security Studies poll found that 69 percent of Israeli respondents agreed that “the campaign against Hezbollah should continue.” But 62 percent also disagreed that “the current campaign in Lebanon will provide long-term security calm.” Eighty-four percent of respondents expressed concern about the security situation in Lebanon, up sharply from 51 percent in February. The anxiety crosses partisan lines. Eighty-four percent of people who voted for Netanyahu’s coalition expressed that worry.

Israelis are becoming disheartened by a recurring pattern. Their military delivers blows that are tactically costly to Hezbollah but fail to deliver the grand strategic promises that the country’s political echelon keeps making to the public, leaving them repeatedly disappointed by optimistic assurances.

Disarming a paramilitary force that is also a major political and social movement is a complex task, even in more favorable contexts. It can succeed quickly only when a militant group voluntarily signs a peace treaty in exchange for its inclusion in formal politics, as the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Columbia, or FARC, did in the early 2010s, or when an international coalition forcibly integrates the militia into a new state structure, as the United Nations and NATO did to the Kosovo Liberation Army in the late 1990s. The Irish Republican Army’s disarmament took seven years after a political agreement was struck. In Lebanon, Israel is trying to use external military pressure to force a third party—the frail, factionalized Lebanese state—to disarm an uncooperative militia, making the case and timeline uniquely complicated.

But disarming Hezbollah is essential for the sake of both the Israelis and the Lebanese. And as Israel winds itself even more tightly into a strategic bind, it also risks wasting a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Much of the Lebanese public is fed up with Hezbollah, and public discourse has recently shifted in ways that create a historic opening for peace. Since the early 2025 change in government, key Lebanese politicians and activists have publicly distanced themselves from Hezbollah and talked about peace with Israel, a previously taboo subject; some Lebanese figures have even flirted with limited diplomatic engagement. A May poll by Information International, an independent research and consultancy firm based in Beirut, showed that most Lebanese support peace with Israel. But a prolonged Israeli presence with no tangible diplomatic progress could rehabilitate Hezbollah’s resistance narrative and fuel its effort to present itself as a necessary defender against occupation.

TALK CAN’T BE CHEAP

The U.S.-led talks between the Israeli and Lebanese governments are limited by design. Because Israel is heading to elections in the fall, the negotiating team has little authority, let alone any ability to discuss an IDF withdrawal from Lebanese territory in the foreseeable future. The continuation of the negotiations despite escalation on the ground theoretically preserves a pathway for progress. But like Lebanese leaders, Israeli leaders will soon need to demonstrate that this peace process offers tangible benefits to their respective constituencies.

The Lebanese government and most of its people are Israel’s partners and should be treated as such on the long, arduous way to disarm Hezbollah. As an immediate confidence-building measure, Israeli leaders—Netanyahu in particular—must articulate clearly that Israel has no long-term territorial claims in Lebanon and that the IDF’s presence in the southern part of the country is only temporary. Israel should also avoid fortifying its presence and accept a partial withdrawal as part of a U.S.-Iranian agreement (if one is signed). Doing the latter could provide Israel a needed off-ramp by forcing it to roll back its expanded buffer zone, ideally to the original five hilltops it held upon the November 2024 cease-fire. Notwithstanding the domestic pressure for military aggression, operational restraint is important, as well. Indiscriminate strikes (especially in Beirut), razing villages, and creating permanent structures on Lebanese soil undercut the Lebanese government’s domestic legitimacy and its ability to confront Hezbollah—and they risk rehabilitating the group’s image as a protector of Lebanese civilians. Israel must calibrate its operations so that they degrade Hezbollah’s combat capacity while preserving the civic infrastructure that the Lebanese state needs to expand its authority.

Israel could also offer immediate confidence-building measures that can be sold at home: water projects in shared river basins, energy cooperation initiatives to ease Lebanon’s power crisis, visitation rights to holy sites for Lebanese pilgrims, and a phased review of the status of Lebanese detainees held in Israel who are not Hezbollah members. Such measures would not constitute concessions but investments in the stability of a neighbor. They would also give Beirut political room to stand up to Hezbollah, keep negotiating, and reciprocate with similar steps, such as canceling a law that criminalizes all direct and indirect contact between Lebanese and Israeli people.

Israeli leaders need to be candid with their own domestic constituents and recalibrate expectations. Overstating victories only breeds public frustration. They should also stop framing the Lebanese government and its military as incompetent and instead acknowledge what it has done so far to tackle Hezbollah—including decommissioning nearly 10,000 rockets and almost 400 missiles, according to U.S. Central Command, reestablishing control over the Beirut airport (a key node in the smuggling network that funds Hezbollah), removing military officers tied to Hezbollah from key roles, deploying troops to the country’s eastern border with Syria, and opening military intelligence files on Hezbollah operatives. In another promising step, Lebanon’s central bank has imposed unprecedented bans and regulatory crackdowns on al-Qard al-Hasan, Hezbollah’s parallel banking institution.

At the same time, Israel and the United States must be clear-eyed about what Lebanon has yet to do and plainly state the gaps in capacity and will, holding Lebanon accountable. The U.S. negotiating team should turn its list of principles into a clear road map that both Lebanon and Israel can sign and that sets benchmarks for both countries. This plan must provide for the strengthening of the Lebanese armed forces (conditioned on the removal of Hezbollah members from its ranks), the breaking of Hezbollah’s patronage and financial networks, the institution of anticorruption measures in Lebanon, and the restoration of basic services in Shiite areas. The road map should assign responsibilities, set realistic timelines, and enlist partners in the Gulf and Europe to offer financial incentives that make disarming Hezbollah, rehoming and reconstructing displaced communities, and economic development more realistic. Signing up for such a plan would offer Israel diplomatic advantages in Europe, where its support is plummeting, and in Arab countries with which it aspires to normalize diplomatic ties, especially Saudi Arabia—the prime candidate for funding Lebanon’s reconstruction.

Such a road map should also lay out a phased IDF withdrawal that is tied to Lebanon’s meeting clear benchmarks. The Lebanese armed forces—vetted, trained, and equipped under a U.S.-led program— must assume security responsibility across the south as Hezbollah’s armed infrastructure is verifiably degraded. Unlike the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission to Lebanon, which failed to comprehensively monitor Hezbollah and whose mandate is coming to an end this summer, U.S. and European monitors should chart Lebanon’s progress according to clear criteria: how many Hezbollah weapons it has decommissioned, how many checkpoints it has established to prevent Hezbollah from becoming re-entrenched in old stomping grounds, and how many security troops it has positioned along the Lebanese border with Israel.

Israel can also propose a nonbelligerency framework, or even a conditional peace agreement, that is ready for signature once Hezbollah’s presence is reduced. Solving land border disputes between Israel and Lebanon in such a context could achieve three aims: it could undercut Hezbollah’s narrative as a defender of Lebanon; allow political leaders to claim forward motion without waiting for an all‑or‑nothing settlement; and demonstrate to both Lebanon and the international community that Israel is not interested in perpetual war.