Hezbollah's miscalculation: Is Lebanon facing a new Israeli war?

Beirut, Lebanon - When Hezbollah fired six rockets into Israel following the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the move sent shockwaves through Lebanese politics and across its own base, raising a fundamental question: was this a principled act of resistance, or a reckless display of submission to Tehran?

The launch was notable not only for what it did, but for what it revealed. There had been no political groundwork, no logistical preparation.

For over a year, Hezbollah had absorbed Israeli strikes on its positions, watched its commanders assassinated, and seen hundreds of fighters killed, without firing a single rocket in response. Then, within hours of Khamenei's death, six missiles were in the air.

The response was swift and severe as Israeli strikes returned to Lebanese skies. Hundreds of thousands of cars were stranded for hours on roads across the country after Israeli warnings demanded the evacuation of dozens of villages. The Israeli military then announced the beginning of ground operations in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese government, which had been quietly betting on restraint, took the extraordinary step of banning Hezbollah's military activity, which Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general and MP Mohammed Raad described as “a meaningless show of strength”.

Pressing the button

For critics of Hezbollah, the sequence of events was damning.

Charles Jabbour, head of the media bureau of the Lebanese Forces party, framed the decision in blunt terms. "Any party that decides to go to war should assess the balance of power and the consequences of that choice: Can it offer anything in this war? Can it shift the balance or change the outcome of the previous war?" he told The New Arab.

Jabbour went further, arguing that the rockets were militarily meaningless and that Hezbollah knew it.

“No one in this world fires rockets just to fire them, knowing they will neither advance nor hinder the military situation, but will only lead to death, displacement, war, and catastrophe,” he said. “Firing the rockets means Hezbollah decided to commit suicide.”

He accused Hezbollah of acting as a direct instrument of Iran’s will. "Iran requested it, pressed the control button, and it fired the rockets, leading to the displacement of thousands and the destruction of homes.”

The move, he said, was taken "contrary to communications the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister had conducted with the party, contrary to Cabinet decisions, the ministerial statement, the oath speech, and against the will of the Lebanese people to keep Lebanon neutral, and without any logic, given the absence of a balance of power”.

Jabbour called on the cabinet to formally dissolve Hezbollah, describing it as a danger to Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

Retired Brigadier General Saeed Qazah echoed this assessment, arguing that what Hezbollah did “confirms once again that it is merely a faction subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, receiving and executing its orders, placing the interests of its 'guardian' above the interests of Lebanon, its people, and even its own support base”.

He noted to TNA that despite prior promises to the Lebanese government and to both the President and Prime Minister not to intervene in this war, “as soon as the Iranian order was issued, it rushed to execute a rocket volley - rockets that neither advance nor hinder the military situation, neither support Iran nor defeat Israel”.

For Qazah, the rockets were either a deliberate deception of Lebanese officials or evidence that the party is "overwhelmed by Revolutionary Guard instructions".

Hezbollah's internal calculations

Inside Hezbollah's orbit, the picture is different, though not entirely convincing to outsiders.

A source close to the party pushed back against the narrative of blind obedience, arguing that the rocket fire “was an obligatory response to the assassination of the Supreme Leader, who is a major symbol for Shia and for Hezbollah in particular, and it is illogical that the party would not intervene, ideologically, intellectually, and rationally”.

The source also dismissed suggestions that the scale of the response indicated internal discord or Iranian pressure for a broader operation.

“If that were the case, they would have demanded the opening of full fronts, not the firing of six rockets,” the source told TNA, denying any internal divisions being circulated about the party.

More pointedly, the source offered a strategic rationale. “The party has nothing to lose in this war. What happened is a golden attempt to impose a new reality - since the war is already underway and has targeted the Supreme Leader, meaning there are no more red lines,” they told TNA.

“Whatever happens - a coming agreement, a halt to the war, an escalation with Iran - Hezbollah and Lebanon will be within the framework of any solution, to change the reality of assassinations and attacks, and to end a full year of bloodshed.”

A dangerous moment for Lebanon

Beyond the internal Lebanese debate, military analysts are watching a region they describe as entering genuinely uncharted territory.

Retired Brigadier General Munir Chahada placed the moment in its broadest context. “The region is witnessing a pivotal moment of extreme sensitivity following the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” he told TNA.

“The event in itself goes beyond the targeting of a political figure; it struck the apex of the Iranian system, opening the door to wide regional repercussions ranging from a redrawing of the rules of engagement to an uncalculated slide toward open confrontation.”

He described the current war as potentially the most dangerous the region has ever seen. “For Iran, this is a war of life or death. For the United States and Israel, if they do not achieve the fall of the regime, America may resort to unconventional weapons.”

Lebanon, Chahada argued, sits on a sharp political and security fault line. “The Lebanese state, burdened by unprecedented economic, financial, and social crises, does not have the luxury of entering a new war," he said.

“Yet the country is not simply a state with formal institutions; it is an arena where regional strategies intersect, foremost among them Hezbollah's role as Iran's primary ally in the Levant.” 

The reckoning ahead

Qazah offered perhaps the starkest forecast for what comes next. “The inevitable outcome of this war will be a catastrophe, first for Hezbollah's own environment, second for the Lebanese state, and third for the Lebanese people as a whole.”

On the ground, he predicted “intensive airstrikes and targeted operations against Hezbollah's fighters and leadership across all of Lebanon,” noting that recent strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, carried out without prior warning, signal a new Israeli approach: maximum impact, maximum displacement, maximum pressure on the civilian population to turn against the party.

A ground incursion, he added, “is a real and not unlikely possibility, particularly from the direction of Mount Hermon down toward al-Masnaa in the western Bekaa, to sever the connection between the south and the Bekaa”.

The Lebanese government's decision to formally prohibit Hezbollah's military activity is itself a measure of how much has shifted. For years, Beirut maintained studied ambiguity about the party's weapons.

Now, with six rockets, that ambiguity has collapsed, replaced by an open confrontation between state authority and a militia whose loyalty, critics say, was never really to Lebanon.

As Jabbour put it: “This confirms it is an Iranian tool. The last thing it cares about is its own community”.

Ali Awadah is a Lebanese journalist with bylines in several local outlets, focusing on human rights

This article is published in collaboration with Egab

Edited by Charlie Hoyle