In Beirut, the feeling of security is always relative, said a 55-year-old resident of the Lebanese capital.
“Even before this week's attack, Israeli reconnaissance planes repeatedly flew over us: But this attack was painful because it took place in a residential area,” the accountant told DW, referring to the drone attack that killed a high-ranking Hamas member , Saleh al-, was killed. Arouri, on Tuesday evening. Israel has not directly confirmed that it is responsible, but has said that as part of its fight against Hamas in Gaza it will seek to “eliminate” Hamas leaders wherever they are.
“We feel more unsafe at the moment,” confirmed a 30-year-old teacher living in Beirut. “We don’t know if we could be bombed at some point.”
Despite their fears, none of the Beirut residents DW spoke to – all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue in their city – wanted Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah militia to go to war against Israel as a result. They certainly didn't want a regional war either, they emphasized.
A 45-year-old retail assistant in the Lebanese capital believes Hezbollah is a useful deterrent, stopping the Israeli military from invading Lebanon. “They are the only ones who are committed to protecting us,” she told DW.
“But nobody likes war,” the teacher added. “I would like to have her [Hezbollah] be careful.”
An important speech
That's why all eyes were on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday evening as he gave a speech in Beirut the day after the alleged Israeli attack.
In his speech, Nasrallah called the killing “a serious, dangerous crime.” However, he made no specific threats regarding escalation.
Nasrallah (on screen) said that if the current conflict escalates, the Iran-backed militia would fight “until the end.” Image: Hassan Ammar/AP Photo/Picture Alliance
Nasrallah's comments were difficult to interpret. Some long-time Hezbollah watchers said his tone was more aggressive than in previous speeches. Others, including Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, appeared to believe that Hezbollah, a major political force in his country, was unlikely to declare all-out war on Israel.
“We hope that they will not get involved in a major war… We have many reasons to believe that this will not happen,” Bou Habib told US news channel CNN this week. Nobody in Lebanon wants that, he added – including, he suspected, Hezbollah.
In 2006, the Israeli military and Hezbollah fought a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon after Hezbollah kidnapped several Israeli soldiers. Millions were displaced, over 1,000 people were killed and Lebanon's infrastructure was severely damaged. The battle essentially ended in a stalemate and an Israeli withdrawal.
Since 2006, “Hezbollah has massively expanded its arsenal and the sophistication of its weapons,” said Jeffrey Feltman, visiting foreign policy fellow at the US think tank Brookings Institution, in a November commentary. “The incontrovertible purpose of Hezbollah’s estimated 150,000 rockets is to deter Israel from a massive attack on Iran – or to retaliate for a massive Israeli attack on Iran.”
According to experts, rocket attacks on the Israeli-Lebanese border are common practice. Image: Jalaa Marey/AFP/Getty Images
Violations of the rules of engagement
Since 2006, the two arch-enemies have regularly exchanged blows with rockets on Lebanon's southern border. According to experts, this happens regularly and shows that both sides apparently accept the unofficial, deterrence-based rules of engagement.
This summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly threatened to kill al-Arouri, several months before Hamas' October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Israel and other governments. Hezbollah is also classified as a terrorist organization by several countries, including the United States and Germany, although the designation is disputed by some due to the role that Hezbollah's political wing has played in successive Lebanese governments since 1992.
In response to Netanyahu's comments, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said that these types of attacks were a red line for his organization, no matter who they targeted.
The latest suspected Israeli drone attack in the middle of a crowded suburb of the city, more than 100 kilometers from the border and known as a Hezbollah stronghold, crosses Nasrallah's “red line” and represents a clear departure from the unofficial rules of engagement.
Hezbollah leader vows retaliation after Beirut explosion
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Recent events have upset “the balance of deterrence,” said Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and a long-time Hezbollah observer.
To restore this, Hezbollah must respond, she explained. “Whatever happens, it has to happen quickly. They must not let too much time pass because Israel has already declared its intention to carry out a sustained campaign of murder.” [of Hamas members].”
Although Israel has suggested that these attacks could also happen in Qatar and Turkey, this seems unlikely, experts agree. Qatar is playing a diplomatic role in the hostage negotiations and Israel does not want to further upset already tense relations with Turkey. The most likely place for such an act is Lebanon.
“Hezbollah knows full well that if it doesn't respond, Israel could, firstly, not only attack another Palestinian target in Lebanon, but secondly, it could actually see Hezbollah as weak,” she explained. “So they need to carefully time an attack that doesn't embarrass Israel and force it into an escalating response, but that also sends the message that you can't keep doing this, you can't use Beirut as a military theater.”
“Since October 8, Hezbollah has never been in such a delicate situation,” Antony Samrani, editor-in-chief of Lebanon's leading newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, confirmed in an editorial this week. “If Hezbollah does nothing, it will open the way for more attacks of this kind in its stronghold. But if the reaction is too violent, it opens the way to all-out war.”
Respond to provocation?
So far, observers say, Hezbollah does not appear to want to expand its military operations or respond too decisively to provocations. As Samrani points out, Hezbollah has not responded radically to other similar attacks.
In fact, Israel may be more of a “black box,” Saad said. It is difficult to say what Israel's intentions are because the country is led by the most right-wing government it has ever had and because Israeli political opinion is divided.
There are other unanswered questions about this week's attack in Beirut. The US has called on its Israeli allies to take more targeted action and avoid killing civilians. Although the death toll in Gaza was over 22,000 at last count, Israel was unable to kill many senior Hamas leaders in Gaza. As the Israeli public begins to question its own death toll, observers suspect that Israel may now turn to easier-to-implement operations like the assassination of al-Arouri. In his speech, Hezbollah's Nasrallah suggested that killing al-Arouri would allow Israeli politicians some sort of victory.
This could indicate a new phase of the conflict with less intensity, Saad explained.
Finally, the Beirut incident follows Israel's December 25 assassination of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a senior Iranian general in Damascus, Syria. The U.S. military has clashed directly with the Houthis in Yemen, who are holding international ships for ransom, and has attacked Iran-aligned militias in Iraq.
On Thursday, a US missile strike killed the commander of one of the latter, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, in Baghdad. When asked whether Israel was involved in Thursday's attack, an Israeli spokesman did not comment, news agencies reported.