In the last week alone, Israel has killed a senior Hamas militant in an airstrike in Beirut, Hezbollah has fired rocket fire at Israel, the US has killed a militia commander in Baghdad and Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen have exchanged fire with the American Navy.
Every attack and counterattack increases the risk that the already catastrophic war in Gaza will spread to the entire region. And in the decades-long standoff between the United States and Israel against Iran and allied militant groups, either party may prefer all-out war to loss of face.
The divisions within each camp add another level of volatility: Hamas might have hoped that its October 7 attack would draw its allies into a larger war with Israel. Israelis are increasingly talking about the need to change the equation in Lebanon, even as the United States seeks to contain the conflict.
As the interconnected chess games become more and more complicated, the risk of misjudgment increases.
GAZA IS GROUND ZERO
Hamas says the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war in Gaza was an act of purely Palestinian resistance to Israel's decades-long domination of the Palestinians. There is no evidence that Iran, Hezbollah or other allied groups played a direct role or had prior knowledge of it.
But when Israel responded by launching one of the most devastating military campaigns of the 21st century in Gaza, a besieged enclave of 2.3 million Palestinians, the so-called Axis of Resistance – Iran and the militant groups it supports across the region – the sidelines barely remain.
Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in the rubble of a house destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
The Palestinian cause resonates widely across the region, and confronting Hamas alone with Israel's wrath would have risked dismantling a military alliance that Iran has built since the 1979 Islamic Revolution put it on a collision course with the West brought.
“They don't want war, but at the same time they don't want to let the Israelis continue to strike without retaliation,” said Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese Hezbollah expert.
“Something big has to happen without war to convince the Israelis and Americans that there is no way forward,” he said.
Hezbollah is threading the needle
Of all of Iran's regional proxies, Hezbollah faces the greatest dilemma.
If it tolerates Israeli attacks, such as the attack in Beirut that killed Hamas's deputy political leader, it risks appearing as a weak or unreliable ally. However, if an all-out war breaks out, Israel threatens massive destruction in Lebanon, which is already mired in a severe economic crisis. Even Hezbollah supporters might see that as too high a price to pay for a Palestinian ally.
Since the war broke out in Gaza, Hezbollah has carried out almost daily attacks along the border, with the apparent aim of tying down some Israeli troops. Israel has returned fire, but each side appears to be carefully timing its actions to limit the intensity.
A Hezbollah barrage of at least 40 rockets fired at an Israeli military base on Saturday sent a message without triggering war. Would 80 have been a step too far? What if someone had been killed? How many casualties would justify a full-scale offensive? The murky mathematics provides no clear answers.
A Hezbollah supporter walks past a portrait depicting senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, who was killed in an apparent Israeli attack in Beirut on Tuesday during a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of the assassination of slain Iranian Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani in the south was suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, January 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
And in the end, it may not be a single punch that does the trick.
Israel is committed to allowing tens of thousands of its citizens to return to communities near the border with Lebanon that were evacuated under Hezbollah fire nearly three months ago, and may no longer be able to face an armed Hezbollah after October 7 -Presence right on the border to tolerate on the other side of the border.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly threatened to use military force if Hezbollah does not respect a 2006 U.N. ceasefire that ordered the militant group to withdraw from the border.
“Neither side wants war, but both sides believe it is inevitable,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “Everyone in Israel thinks it’s just a matter of time before we have to change the reality” so people can return to their homes, he said.
Another American war in the Middle East?
The US deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region in October. One returns home but is replaced by other warships. The operations were a clear warning to Iran and its allies against escalating the conflict, but not everyone seems to have gotten the message.
Iran-backed militant groups in Syria and Iraq have launched dozens of rocket attacks on US bases. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, with potential consequences for the global economy. Iran says its allies are acting on their own initiative and not on Tehran's orders.
Members of the Abu Sinjar family mourn their loved ones killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at their home in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Carter Hall and the USS Bataan transit the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb on August 9, 2023. (Mass Communications Spc. 2nd Class Moises Sandoval/US Navy via AP)
The last thing most Americans want after two decades of costly campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan is another war in the Middle East.
But in recent weeks, U.S. forces have killed a senior commander of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq and 10 Houthi rebels who tried to board a container ship, shedding blood that could prompt a response.
Washington has struggled to assemble a multinational security force to protect shipping in the Red Sea. But it appears hesitant to attack the Houthis on land when they are close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia after years of war.
Israeli officials have since said the window for its allies to persuade both Hezbollah and the Houthis to step down is closing.
How does this end?
Regional tensions are likely to remain high as Israel continues its offensive in Gaza, which it says is aimed at destroying Hamas. Many question whether that is even possible given the group's deep roots in Palestinian society, and Israel's own leaders say it will take many months.
The United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for the Israeli offensive, is widely seen as the only power capable of ending it. Iran's allies appear to believe that Washington will intervene if its own costs become too high – hence the attacks on US bases and international shipping.
Civil defense forces search for survivors in an apartment after a massive explosion in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are all back in the region this week, aiming to stem the violence through diplomacy.
But the most important messages are still likely to be sent by rocket.
“The Americans don’t want open war with Iran, and the Iranians don’t want open war with the United States,” said Ali Hamadeh, an analyst who writes for the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar. “That’s why there are fire negotiations.”
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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed.