Israel-Lebanon Border Tensions: Hezbollah Provocation, IDF Response, and the Potential for Conflict

Описание: Simmering tensions along Israel’s Blue Line frontier with Lebanon rose another degree in the summer of 2023 with IDF officials preparing to visit the UN for talks on the matter and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warning that Israel “will send Lebanon back to the Stone Age” if Hezbollah escalates. What has changed in Hezbollah’s longstanding provocations on this front, and what are the prospects for near-term conflict there? Will recent developments at home play a role in shaping the group’s calculus?

The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum on August 22, 2023 with Hanin Ghaddar, Matthew Levitt, and Assaf Orion, moderated by Segal Executive Director Robert Satloff.

Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow in the Institute’s Rubin Program on Arab Politics and coauthor of its recent study “Cash Cabal: How Hezbollah Profits from Lebanon’s Financial Crisis.”

Matthew Levitt is the Institute’s Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, where his numerous Lebanon projects include an interactive map of Hezbollah’s worldwide activities and the podcast series Breaking Hezbollah’s Golden Rule.

Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (Res.) is the Institute’s Rueven International Fellow and former head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division, where he oversaw communications with UNIFIL and the Lebanese army, among other key duties.