Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is still pondering his response. He had planned to make a speech on Wednesday, January 3, to mark the anniversary of the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the architect of the "axis of resistance" to Israel, who was killed in Iraq in 2020 by an American strike. Yet it was all the more eagerly awaited after the previous day's targeted assassination, attributed to Israel, of Saleh al-Arouri, second-in-command of Hamas's political bureau, in the heart of Beirut. Nasrallah, however, mainly promised to return to the subject in greater detail, in a new speech on Friday – the day after al-Arouri's burial in Beirut's Chatila Palestinian refugee camp.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah's leader merely reiterated his threats against Israel, without revealing the specifics of a possible retaliation. After denouncing a "dangerous crime" committed in the southern suburbs of Beirut, his movement's stronghold, "the first time they target the southern suburbs in this way since 2006" – referring to that year's war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah – he assured that this assassination "will not go unanswered and unpunished."
Hezbollah faces a difficult equation. It cannot fail to respond to what it has deemed a provocation by Israel in its heartland, a red line for it. Yet an overly blunt reaction – one that could jeopardize the fragile balance of deterrence that has been in place since October 2023 with Israel along the Lebanese border – risks dragging it into an all-out war that it does not want.
A 'front of support' for Hamas
"When we opened the southern front on October 8 [the day after the Israeli intervention in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas attack], we did so to support the oppressed people of Gaza, while taking into consideration the national interest and the difficulties in Lebanon," justified Nasrallah, according to whom Hezbollah intervenes as a "front of support" for Hamas. Mark Regev, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had made sure to provide Nasrallah with arguments for a measured response, in asserting that the strike was not aimed at Lebanon or Hezbollah – without, however, claiming responsibility for it.
Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel since al-Arouri's death have remained within the bounds of the tacit rules of engagement to which the two belligerents have adhered since October 8. The daily harassment of Israeli military positions close to the border by the Shiite armed movement has killed nine soldiers and five civilians. Except for a few deep strikes on Hezbollah positions, the Israeli army's counter-attacks have also been concentrated on the border area. On Wednesday, 129 Hezbollah fighters were killed, including an official in southern Lebanon, as well as more than 20 civilians.
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