A Hezbollah-Israel war has never been closer

This also matched Iran's strategy of positioning and strengthening several proxies around Israel. What al-Arouri called the "convergence of arenas", others have called the "ring of fire"— the expanding circle of militias surrounding Israel.

In some ways, he was the Palestinian closest equivalent to the infamous Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani: a man who could coordinate between allies, beyond borders, for the sake of a shared vision and goal. Incidentally, al-Arouri was killed on 2 January, three years to the day after the killing of Soleimani by an American drone near Baghdad.

With such a pedigree, one could wonder why al-Arouri wasn't killed earlier. Many factors can explain his ability to survive, despite having a target on his back. 

His relocation to Beirut is one of the main reasons behind Israel's decision not to target al-Arouri — up until 2 January. He was living in Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah-run suburb of southern Beirut. Killing him could easily trigger a war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Clear escalation

And yet, during the evening hours of January 2, several suspected Israeli missiles impacted an apartment and a nearby car, killing al-Arouri and several other Hamas lieutenants. 

This was a clear escalation by Israel. It sent a message to Hamas that none of its leaders would be spared and that Israel is committed to finding and killing those responsible for the 7 October massacre.

But just as importantly, it also sent a message to Hezbollah that Israel was willing to trigger a devastating conflict with the Lebanese-based group.

The threat of conflict was always there, but it never felt as imminent as after the death of al-Arouri. Violence along the border between Israel and Lebanon had continued since 7 October. Still, both sides had effectively abided by new "rules of engagement" that limited the geographic scope of said clashes to the immediate border area.

Hezbollah attacks even decreased in number, though the group did use increasingly sophisticated weaponry to target Israel. This fragile equilibrium was broken when Israel killed al-Arouri in the heart of Beirut.

The timing was not coincidental.

In the lead-up to al-Arouri's assassination, Israeli officials warned that, after 7 October, Israel could no longer live side by side with Hezbollah. Residents of Israel's north have been evacuated over fear that Hezbollah could emulate Hamas's cross-border attacks.

I will point out that the plan Hamas put into action on 7 October, which saw special forces breach the border at multiple points and take hostages, is eerily similar to one of Hezbollah's own, dubbed "Conquest of the Galilee".

On Israeli TV, since 7 October, the mayors of several border communities along the Israel-Lebanon border have all said they would refuse to come back unless the threat from Hezbollah were tackled.

Displacement dilemma

As a result, Israel's government faces a dilemma: How can it claim victory if dozens of thousands of Israeli residents of the north remain displaced over fear that Hezbollah may repeat what Hamas did near Gaza?

Public opinion in Israel also shifted more clearly in support of a pre-emptive strike against the Iranian-backed group. As a result, Israel has been looking to push Hezbollah away from the border, either through force or diplomacy — and most likely through a combination of both.

Enormous stakes

Yet, the stakes are enormous.

By trying to prevent future Hezbollah attacks, Israel may bring a catastrophe of similar scale. A conflict with Hezbollah could prove devastating and fail to remove the threat posed by the group.

Hezbollah is estimated to have between 100,000 and 150,000 missiles and rockets, including thousands of long-range projectiles and hundreds of precision-guided missiles. It could fire thousands of rockets a day for months, challenging even Israel's state-of-the-art air defence array.

The group is also deeply entrenched inside southern Lebanon, having built thousands of defensive positions, underground networks, and missile positions in the area south of the Litani River and beyond.

An actual defeat of Hezbollah on the battlefield (if at all possible) wouldn't take weeks but rather months if not years. Yet some in Israel are willing to roll the dice, arguing that Israel will never be as ready as it is now and that it is better to act today than let Israelis be caught by surprise, as they were on 7 October.

For Lebanon, a country already on the precipice, the consequences of a conflict would be catastrophic. Israel has warned many times that should a conflict break out with Hezbollah, it would "send Lebanon back to the stone age".

Those are not just words. Given the threat posed by Hezbollah's missiles and how deeply entrenched the group is in Lebanon, Israel would have to quickly enter the country and act even more forcefully than it did in Gaza.

Even a few weeks of conflict could bring utter devastation to the country. And in the aftermath of such a conflict, many wouldn't be willing to fund reconstruction: The Lebanese elite's staunch refusal to reform itself already alienated most of Lebanon's potential donors.

MAD theory

In many ways, the Hezbollah-Israel dynamic resembles the "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) theory seen during the Cold War. This Mutually Assured Destruction theory has been used to explain why both sides were reluctant to engage in nuclear threats or escalation for fear that they would both be destroyed in the process.

To be clear, the difference here is that neither Israel nor Hezbollah may be destroyed by the end of a war between the two. Both sides would suffer enormous losses, with little prospect of "winning" anything.

This, by any measure, should incentivise restraint on both sides and, to an extent, it has, up until now. This makes Israel's decision to kill al-Arouri in the heart of Dahiyeh even more notable. Israel is willing to trigger a conflict it has long sought to avoid.

At the same time, reading between the lines, there are signs that Israel does not necessarily "want" a conflict to materialise. Israel has refrained from taking responsibility for the death of al-Arouri, and Israeli officials have said that the attack did not target Hezbollah nor Lebanon but rather Hamas. This is an attempt to shape the narrative.

Not that Hezbollah will brush it off as "just another attack against Hamas". The group sees the attack in Dahiyeh for what it is, namely an Israeli escalation.

Read more: Potential for regional escalation has never been greater

A failing case

But given the catastrophic destruction Lebanon would suffer if Hezbollah engaged in a war with Israel, the group also has to build a "case" for why it decided to drag Lebanon into another unprecedented crisis.

So far, the group has failed to make that case.

While the death of al-Arouri pushes both sides closer to war, Hezbollah can hardly argue that it would be "worth it" for the Lebanese to lose the few things they managed to salvage for the sake of avenging a Palestinian leader.

Importantly, this rhetoric from Israel could suggest that — for all its bravado — Israel isn't adamant that a conflict with Hezbollah absolutely needs to happen and may be looking to leverage the escalation to force Hezbollah out of the border.

Israel may be counting on Hezbollah's realisation that it can't justify a war to create a new dynamic and extract concessions while taking unprecedented shots at the group in the process.

This may explain Hezbollah's relatively muted response so far. A few days after al-Arouri's killing, Hezbollah fired dozens of missiles at northern Israel, including at an Israeli military base situated in Mount Meron. The group said this was an "initial response" to the death of al-Arouri.

Though Hezbollah portrayed the attack as being extremely significant, this attack isn't on par with Israel's killing of al-Arouri in the heart of Dahiyeh. This would not be the first time Hezbollah managed pressure to respond to an Israeli attack by claiming it carried out a limited "first response" — with no real follow-up.

The group may also count on Iran's network of proxies to take some of the pressure off it by carrying out attacks against Israel or even the US.

After all, this has been Iran's main strategy since 7 October, with Tehran deciding to shift its rhetoric and blame the US as the "ultimate decision-maker" when it comes to Gaza. This also allowed it to avoid escalating with Israel and face a more predictable actor in Washington.

This does mean that there may still be room to step back from the abyss, particularly if the levels of violence along the border between Israel and Lebanon return to normal and if diplomatic pressure is applied on both sides.

But, as of writing, this is not what we're seeing. Israel is showing itself to be far less risk-averse and upping the ante following al-Arouri's death. 

It responded to the Mount Meron attack by killing Wissam al-Tawil, a well-connected commander with Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit. Later, Israel also killed the head of Hezbollah's Aerial Unit in southern Lebanon as he was driving to the funeral of al-Tawil.

On the same day, Hezbollah launched a series of drones against the IDF's Northern Command headquarters.

This suggests another possibility, namely that Israel is now convinced a short conflict with Hezbollah is inevitable. This conflict is unlikely to solve anything, but it would help the Israeli government claim the situation in the north has changed.

Eventually, whether Israel is simply pushing Hezbollah and hoping the group will relent and move out or actually looking to deal with the threat militarily may prove irrelevant. If the dynamic of escalation does not stop, a conflict will happen.