Gaza truce could be key to avoiding Hezbollah war

JERUSALEM: For nine months, Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that dominates southern Lebanon, have fought a low-level conflict that has edged closer to an all-out war. Since October both sides have fired thousands of missiles across the Israel-Lebanon border, wrecking towns, killing hundreds, displacing hundreds of thousands and leading both to threaten to invade the other.

Now mediators between the two sides hope a truce in the Gaza Strip could provide the impetus for a similar drawdown along the Israel-Lebanon border, even as the risk of escalation there remains higher than ever.

Hezbollah has said it will stop firing rockets if Israel halts its war with Hamas in Gaza. If that happens, both Israel and Hezbollah have signalled to interlocutors that they would be prepared to begin negotiations for a formal truce, according to three Western officials briefed on the sides’ positions and an Israeli official. The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely.

Those negotiations would focus on the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from the southernmost areas of Lebanon and the deployment of more soldiers from Lebanon’s official military, according to the officials. The talks would also focus on how to demarcate the westernmost parts of the border between the two countries, the officials said; the border has never formally been delineated because the two countries have no diplomatic relationship.

Even if those negotiations ultimately failed, the hope is that their initiation could provide the sides with an excuse to maintain an informal ceasefire and give displaced residents the confidence to return home, the officials said.

The openness of Israel and Hezbollah to such negotiations reflects how, despite their retaliatory strikes and public rhetoric, both sides appear to be privately looking for an off-ramp that would allow them to de-escalate without losing face.

The sides last fought a major land war in 2006, in a month-long conflict in which Israel devastated large parts of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, and southern Lebanon. The scale of the destruction led Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to concede that his group would not have kidnapped and killed several Israeli soldiers that summer had it known it would set off such carnage.

Another big war would be far more damaging for both sides. Nearly two decades later, Hezbollah is considered one of the world’s most heavily armed non-state actors. US government experts estimate that Hezbollah has a stockpile of more than 150,000 rockets, drones and missiles. Those could be used to take out Israel’s power grid, according to a recent warning from the head of a state-owned Israeli electricity company.

‘‘Neither side really wants a bigger war because they understand the huge damage it would cause their countries,’’ said Thomas Nides, a former United States ambassador to Israel. ‘‘The problem is that wars are caused by miscalculations. And, by trying to deter each other from escalating, they risk making a miscalculation that does the opposite of what they intended.’’

About 100,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 in Israel have been displaced, with scores of schools and health centres shuttered in both countries. More than 460 people in Lebanon have been killed, most of them militants. More than 100 were civilians, including 12 children and 21 health workers, according to the UN and Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Strikes on Israel have killed 21 Israeli soldiers and eight civilians, according to the Israeli government.

The chances of a miscalculation have risen in recent weeks as both sides have tested each other with particularly provocative attacks and statements.

And the threat of a regional escalation was highlighted by a drone strike on Tel Aviv on Friday that was claimed by the Houthis, the Yemeni militia backed by Iran. Israel responded by striking the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Saturday, and the Houthis fired a missile towards Israel on Sunday.

Since the start of June, the Israeli military has killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and said it had finalised plans for an ‘‘offensive’’ in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the country was ‘‘very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon’’.

‘‘In an all-out war,’’ he said, ‘‘Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit.’’

During the same period, Hezbollah has fired two of its largest barrages since the start of the war, sending hundreds of rockets into Israel. It taunted Israelis by broadcasting aerial footage of the Israeli city of Haifa, filmed from a drone that seemed to have evaded Israel’s air defence system. Shortly after, Nasrallah said an invasion of northern Israel remained ‘‘on the table’’.

As well as a militia, Hezbollah is a powerful political force in Lebanon. Analysts say the group fears losing that social influence if it is deemed by the Lebanese public to have dragged the country into an unnecessary and disastrous war.

Publicly, Iran has ramped up its rhetoric. In June it threatened an ‘‘obliterating war’’ if Israel launched a full-scale attack in Lebanon and said ‘‘all options’’, including the involvement of Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East, ‘‘are on the table’’.