Afrasianet - D. Mohamed Halsa - There is an Israeli realization that official Lebanon is not the real party in the equation, as dialogue and agreements are signed with the Lebanese state, but the decision of actual fire and peace is in Hezbollah's hands.
The Israelis do not hide the fact that Washington wanted a ceasefire with Lebanon in order to maintain the course of negotiations with Tehran, and hence they reluctantly swallowed a temporary truce for ten days, which was extended for another three weeks, pending the outcome of the negotiations with Iran.
Although President Trump talks about the possibility of establishing peace between the two countries through a meeting between President Aoun and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, the real goal of the truce and the negotiation track is to facilitate the task of negotiating with Iran, and not to support the peace process with Lebanon, which does not mean anything to Trump according to the Israeli understanding.
Hence, the Israeli conviction that the current ceasefire in Lebanon harms Israel, unlike the ceasefire that took place in November 2024, as Israel is now restricted, and Hezbollah is emboldening and increasing its attacks, and is trying to reformulate the rules of engagement with Israel.
In practice, Israel admits that the facts have changed in favor of the resistance after Hezbollah returned to establish new equations that Minister of War Katz mourned days after the end of the last war when he said, "The time for equations is over," which reflected negatively on the image of Netanyahu and his government, which also acknowledges the restriction of the movement of its army in Lebanon due to Netanyahu's submission to rules imposed by Iran on Trump.
Despite this evasion and Netanyahu's desire to return to the confrontation with the party in its broader form without restrictions, it is not certain for him and for many Israelis that entering into Lebanon more deeply is the best solution for the party's weapons and power and the equations it seeks to impose, but what is certain for Netanyahu is that the current situation cannot continue due to the great damage and embarrassment it inflicts on the Israeli army and Netanyahu in front of the Israeli interior.
For many Israelis, it has become clear that the political level is required to make decisive decisions on how to deal with Lebanon; the waiting phase in the middle of the war does not help shape Israel's security situation. What the Netanyahu government considered an "achievement" in southern Lebanon was not completed with the dismantling and disarmament of Hezbollah, although a new reality was imposed on the first village line and some areas of the second line in terms of evacuation, destruction, and actual control of the ground.
From the perspective of Israeli society, there is a large gap between its expectations of the confrontation and what the political and military level has been able to implement. The Israeli public expected a broad decision, even in the Litani, while the actual goals achieved were narrower in terms of reducing the threat of direct fire, improving the defensive line, and establishing a limited security belt.
The reasons for this restriction are related to the depletion of ground and reserve forces, the fear of heavy losses, the restrictions imposed by President Trump, and most importantly, the need to keep part of the military capability directed toward Iran in the event of a war again.
In this context, Hezbollah's response to Israeli violations of the ceasefire comes as a mutual test: the party is trying to determine the extent to which Israel can respond under the roof of American restrictions, while Israel, on the other hand, seeks to maintain escalation without torpedoing understandings with Washington, and this creates a gray situation for Israel; Israeli responses are in place but are still below the level that radically changes Hezbollah's behavior.
Politically, there is an Israeli realization that official Lebanon is not the real party in the equation, as dialogue and agreements are signed with the Lebanese state, but the decision of actual fire and peace is in the hands of Hezbollah and its successor, Iran, so from the Israeli point of view, any ceasefire with Lebanon remains incomplete unless Hezbollah is actually committed to it, even if it is not an official party to it.
At this stage, Israel seems temporarily and reluctantly willing to absorb limited "responses" from the party while waiting for a broader moment that allows greater freedom of action, such as the collapse of the U.S.-Iran negotiations or a major bloody event among its soldiers or settlers that forces it to expand the ground operation in southern Lebanon.
Ultimately, whether the negotiations with Iran collapse or hold, Israel believes that the continuation of the bilateral negotiations with Lebanon under the auspices of the United States, in parallel with the military escalation, will help strengthen the Lebanese authority vis-à-vis Hezbollah, and may lead to the Lebanese government, under the weight of the need for a ceasefire again, or if it holds, to take more decisive steps against the party and its weapons.
Who knows, Israel may be betting by pressuring the Lebanese Authority to "reverse the functional role of the Lebanese Resistance Corps and the Lebanese Army," from defending Lebanon and protecting its unity to infighting over the party's weapons and negotiating directly with Israel. It may be pushing for a change in the cross-sectarian allegiance of the Lebanese Armed Forces in a religiously and politically divided state, whose army has remained trusted by Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, and Druze, and whose primary institutional loyalty has been to maintain civil peace.
Hence, the Israeli-American play on the special relationship between General Rudolph Heikal, the current commander of the Lebanese army with Hezbollah, can be understood, as there have been reports in the Hebrew media indicating that the United States is demanding his removal from his post as he is hindering entering into a conflict with the party to disarm it.
Hebrew media also noted that Heikal told the government that southern Lebanon was free of a Hezbollah armed presence, but provided inaccurate information to the Lebanese authorities and U.S. officials. Hebrew sources also alluded to his "dual" stance during his meeting in Washington with Senator Lindsey Graham, when asked if he considered Hezbollah a terrorist organization, to which he replied: No, not in the Lebanese context. This raises questions about what the United States and Israel can expect from the Lebanese army if it is implemented. Future agreements.
The Lebanese army has been pursuing a policy of non-confrontation with Hezbollah for years, due to political decisions and fear of civil war, and from here Israel, with the support of the United States, may seek to push the army to move from the model of coexistence with Hezbollah to the role of the sole guarantor of security, which in practice means entering into a conflict with the party to disarm it.
The United States may be betting on its massive foreign support for the military, amounting to billions of dollars in training and equipment, to create a balance against the party's strength, but it knows that its success depends on the availability of powers and resources from the political system. Given its past behavior, the military, under Heikal's leadership, is unlikely to provide decisive support for agreements between Israel and Lebanon if Hezbollah opposes them.
It is likely that Israel will escalate the dispute at its various levels inside Lebanon, especially after the sharp debate between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, who criticized going to direct negotiations with Israel without a Lebanese consensus, as Aoun considered that the state's negotiations with Israel are not treason, "betrayal is committed by those who take their country to war in order to achieve foreign interests."
As long as the negotiation track serves the goal of fueling Lebanese disputes and divisions, in addition to legitimizing the Israeli measures it is taking on Lebanese soil and forcing the state to negotiate on them, Israel will seek to keep it as strong as possible, in the hope that it will put Lebanon in the furnace of internal fighting that deprives Lebanon of its elements of power and serves the Israeli agenda.
