Israeli invasion would punish Lebanon, reward Hezbollah

Lebanon and the Lebanese people have been here before. Israel has been here before too. Believe it or not, the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia has also been here before, cornered and struggling for its domestic survival. In the past, Hezbollah has repeatedly been offered a lifeline by Israel’s misconceived, misdirected and disproportionate attacks on Lebanon, instead of it holding the Assad regime or Iran to account.

The Lebanese people have seen their country bombed and destroyed before. Once for hosting Palestinian resistance forces and time and again due to their nation being hijacked by Syria and its desire to resist and fight Israel through Lebanese armed groups. In 2005, the Assad regime handed the torch to Iran, which established a so-called axis of resistance and, through Hezbollah, hijacked the Lebanese state and put it at the service of its own agenda.

Fast forward to 2026 and the Lebanese people had, before March 1, tried for 15 months to reclaim their sovereignty and independence, attempting to peacefully disarm Hezbollah. However, that dream became the latest to be shattered by Israeli shortsightedness and Hezbollah’s emboldened, pro-Iranian, sectarian stance.

As Israeli troops gather on the border in ever bigger numbers, this time Lebanon looks set to lose big

Mohamed Chebaro

The salvo of missiles and drones launched by Hezbollah against Israel in support of a Tehran regime under deadly attack by the US and Tel Aviv has once again drawn Lebanon into something far bigger than this multicultural, multireligious, small nation on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.

This time, despite assurances from the political leadership of Hezbollah that it would keep Lebanon neutral and save it from Tehran’s anti-US, anti-Israel and anti-Arab calculations, the militia preferred to engulf the region in a ball of fire. The aim was purely to defend the Iranian regime, its despotic government and its revolutionary stance that has been exporting discord, meddling and fear throughout the Middle East and the world since its inception 47 years ago.

As Israeli troops gather on the border in ever bigger numbers, this time Lebanon looks set to lose big. And it is no exaggeration to say that those leaving their villages in the south could be kissing goodbye to their land and the livelihoods they knew before March 2026, just like the many Palestinians who never returned home after 1948, 1967 or the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Hezbollah’s military action on behalf of Iran is making Lebanon stare doom in the eye. This time, the gloves are off. No one is likely to prevent Israel from carving off parts of Lebanon and turning them into a security buffer until further notice. The equation is simple: either the Lebanese government and people reign in, disarm and disband Hezbollah or Israel will empty villages and destroy livelihoods.

This will not be designed and executed like previous Israeli incursions against the Palestinian forces and later Hezbollah in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006 or 2024. The writing on the wall is the displacement of civilians from Christian and Muslim villages alike. This tells us that something new is cooking and it will not be far from the death and destruction dished out by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.

Lebanon and the Lebanese people that support Hezbollah could change that. But the window of opportunity is very narrow.

In the changing world we live in, the discord between superpowers means that the rules-based international order has been weakened and, as a consequence, it is possible no one will come to the rescue. The second-term version of US President Donald Trump believes that might reigns supreme, eroding the standing of multilateralism.

The UN, even with the recent visit of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Beirut and his pleading for an end to the violence, has been unable to make a difference. The clout and guardrails offered by UN Security Council resolutions — which for a long time protected people’s rights when all justice and reason was walked over — has withered.

Unfortunately, pessimism is written all over Lebanon, the Middle East and the world at the moment, as bombs and missiles fly everywhere and inflamed rhetoric dominates.

The displacement of civilians from Christian and Muslim villages alike tells us that something new is cooking

Mohamed Chebaro

The initiative of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is maybe the only way to avert the catastrophe that is about to befall Lebanon. He has proposed starting direct negotiations with Israel to achieve an immediate ceasefire and even go all the way to a peace settlement that protects Lebanon’s independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty, meaning the country is ready to live in peace alongside Israel.

Yes, the record of the current government is not very promising. It has tried, since Israel’s last war with Hezbollah, to push the armed militia back to areas north of the Litani River. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has pledged to ban all armed groups. But as Lebanon’s diverse religious and sectarian fabric dictates, consensus, compromise and practical steps to disarm and dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure remain elusive.

As the clouds of yet another Israeli ground incursion gather on Lebanon’s southern border, preceded by Israeli warnings for all civilians to leave their villages, Aoun and Salam are facing an existential situation that implores them to act and even risk civil peace.

Those in Lebanon and across the region that still believe Hezbollah is a national Lebanese resistance movement are in for a surprise. The missiles and drones it launched against Israel and Cyprus were on the orders of Tehran. This time, the fallout awaiting Lebanon is going to be unprecedented. There is still time to avert that fate, but only if those Lebanese that support Iran for religious and ideological reasons put their national interests and their own survival first and refrain from blindly following Iran’s orders.

Only then can they and Lebanon as a whole prevent Israel’s ground incursion and avoid a lethal blow to the country, its stability and its future territorial integrity and independence. The Lebanese should unite behind their flag and allow the government to gather all the weapons and infrastructure deployed in the country to the benefit of a foreign power and its agenda before it is too late.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.