Israel is just going to keep ratcheting up the horror until Hezbollah decides they have to do something (which they won’t, Hezbollah’s only offensive capabilities are with missiles).

This isn’t entirely true, Hezbollah does have more conventional army forces that could be used to try and invade and hold territory; from my comment a couple months ago, quoting from an interview with Amal Saad, probably the single most knowledgable person on the planet on Hezbollah outside of those actually inside the Resistance’s command:

Jeremy Scahill: If Israel does commit and they do want war with Hezbollah, what does that look like from the Lebanese side, based on the history of these conflicts and wars and Hezbollah’s response to Israel? If Israel does send in ground forces or engages in a very heavy, wider bombing campaign, what could we expect Hezbollah’s response to look like?

Amal Saad: Well, I think the Israeli intelligence is quite aware because I’ve read a lot of these analyses in Israeli and U.S. intelligence reports and others, which is that Hezbollah—first of all, I don’t think we would see what we saw in 2006. I don’t think Israel would even get to invade Lebanon in the same way. I don’t think it would be able to stage a ground incursion, definitely not of that magnitude. And Israel would not be in a purely offensive position. Israel would be also in a defensive position because Hezbollah would also infiltrate and make incursions into Israel proper. So, it’s going to look very different, just in terms of the overall strategy of the war, that it will be an offensive defense on Hezbollah’s part. It won’t just be defense.

Secondly, the fact that Hezbollah has now fully conventionalized, it’s no longer even a hybrid force. I’ve spoken to military experts here, and I’ve been curious myself to see what they think. Where is [Hezbollah] on the spectrum of guerrilla to conventional army? Is it sort of in the middle, like in 2006? They’ve said, “No, it’s actually a fully fledged conventional force now. But obviously it has these sort of capabilities of an irregular armed force. It still retains them and has that experience.” So we’re talking here about a much more sophisticated military organization with well over 100,000 fighters, well over that number, over 150,000 missiles and rockets. You know, back in 2006, Hezbollah had just a few thousand fighters, far fewer rockets, much less sophisticated missiles and rockets. Basically everything that Iran has, all the weapons Iran has, you can be certain Hezbollah has them, too. That’s what we know. And that’s aside from the things that Hezbollah is manufacturing domestically, like it’s drone technology—it’s manufacturing its own drones now. So, we’re talking here about a vastly different military creature than 2006.

And, again, the tactics will not just be purely defensive. They will be offensive. And that’s not even factoring in other actors in the resistance axis who are itching to join the fight and have declared their intent to send hundreds of thousands of fighters, such as the Houthis [from Yemen], to Lebanon.

From all the information I’ve been gathering, it would actually lead to the unraveling of the Israeli state. We’re not talking here about just a defeat for Israel like in 2006. It would be the sort of defeat that would actually lead to its demise. This is why, when we talk about “the great war,” which is not a matter of if, it’s when, when that war happens, which is an inevitability, [Hezbollah] have always said that that is going to be the war that will change the face of the region. So, we are talking here about a scenario which would definitely lead to the destruction of a lot of Lebanon — no one is discounting that or belittling that. But at the same time, it would lead to the destruction of Israel and while it would lead to the destruction of Lebanon in material terms, that destruction would not lead to the unraveling of the Lebanese state in the same way that it would lead to the unraveling of the Israeli or Zionist regime. I think that’s one way of looking at it.

Would Hezbollah actually use these forces to make incursions, and would they be significant if so? It’s possible that we’d see Hezbollah incursions simultaneously with Israeli incursions in order to disrupt the Israeli army and force them to divert resources away from the offensive force to try and defend. It’s possible that they’d focus on defending first and then only go on incursions after the Israeli army has been sufficiently weakened. It’s possible that they don’t think they need to do any incursions, and that displacing settlers and doing barrages on military bases near the border is sufficient. I suppose we’ll see quite soon, given how things are escalating. But I would caution 1-to-1 comparisons with Hamas. They aren’t just quantitatively bigger - they literally have more manpower and ammunition, of course - they’re also qualitatively bigger.

None of us know what the Hezbollah war plan is, though Nasrallah’s recent speech indicates that it’ll be to allow Israel to breach the border so that Israeli forces can be more efficiently destroyed on friendly ground. To what degree Hezbollah will allow Israel to breach into Lebanon, I have no idea. Are we talking “Hezbollah will take a Hamas-esque strategy of having a very fluid defense that doesn’t particularly care what Israel does above-ground; they could go all the way to Tyre and beyond for all we care, because we’ll be attriting them the whole way and they’ll eventually be forced to retreat”? Are we talking “We’ll let Israel get a few miles in before we start strictly defending territory, creating a more conventional pre-prepared cauldron upon which we can rain fire into until the losses become too much”? I don’t think anybody could truly tell you outside of Hezbollah’s leadership.

I feel like war is inevitable at this point. Perhaps if the Netanyahu govt fell and was replaced with a more moderate one that was willing to withdraw from Gaza, but otherwise I don’t see how it will be avoided. It seems like Israel’s position is a lot more precarious than is being admitted, and with the terrorist attack in Lebanon and the ongoing genocide there is no reason for Hezbollah not to maintain pressure, which must eventually result in war. but if a major war breaks out and Israel can’t handle it the US will step in. There is going to be an even greater loss of life and I feel so sorry for all the people there that just want to live in peace, and are the victims of decades of unhinged and idiotic US and Israeli policy which led to this point

clever comment ,oleg.

wasnt obvious to me … very concerning as Israel can use it carte blanche to do some incredible evil shit as we cureently see … , that hezbollah might not be able to counter , their limit is some special missiles. Isreal might soon start the "Nuke "dialog even…

So right now we have a situation where Hezbollah cannot invade Israel, and Israel cannot invade Lebanon. Each wants the other to invade, but they both know it’s a death sentence for either of them to attempt it

Hezbollah wins by simply fucking with Israel until it collapses. The same can not be said the other way around. Hezbollah has time on their side.

Israel’s escalations demonstrate the escalating urgency on their side.