Israel-Hezbollah conflict risks spiraling after soccer field attack

Israeli officials are weighing how to respond to the Hezbollah attack over the weekend that killed 12 children as escalating tensions threaten to stymie U.S. efforts to bring stability and peace to the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Hezbollah will “pay the price” after a rocket struck a soccer field in Israel’s Golan Heights. In addition to the deaths, the attack wounded 20 people in a town dominated by the Druze minority Muslim group.  

The U.S. has tried to defuse tensions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel for months with little success as both sides teeter toward a larger war. Israel is already discussing whether a military operation is needed in Lebanon, and the weekend attack could boost the arguments of those advocating for war. 

While there has been a flurry of back-and-forth strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border, the Golan Heights attack struck a new nerve and created new pressure on Israel to respond with strength.

It also signals just how far the conflict has spiraled out of control.

“The problem with this conflict is that deterrence has disappeared [and] Hezbollah has been accustomed to hitting Israel without consequence," said Michael Rubin, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum.

Rubin predicted a war unless Lebanon and the United Nations take greater action to restrain Hezbollah.  

“The result is going to be war, and it's going to look like Gaza, because the status quo hasn't been able to deter Hezbollah.” 

Limited Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the past two days are expected to be just the beginning of Israeli retaliation. The Lebanese militia group is quickly moving to defend against an Israeli attack, reportedly evacuating some areas in the south and preparing precision-guided missiles.

Netanyahu, whose security Cabinet has authorized a retaliatory strike, doubled down on a harsh response to Hezbollah in a post on the social media platform X after visiting the site of the Golan Heights strike. 

“These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” he wrote. “Our response will come, and it will be hard.” 

The nearly 10-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on Oct. 8, one day after Hamas attacked Israel, when the Iranian-backed military and political group in Lebanon fired artillery and rockets across the border to support Hamas in Gaza.

The fighting has already taken a severe toll on Lebanon, with around 100 civilians killed, along with 350 Hezbollah fighters. Around 20 Israeli soldiers and another roughly 20 civilians in Israel have died.

But the conflict is unlikely to reach its end while the war in Gaza rages on. Israel is inching closer to a deal that could free the roughly 116 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and establish a cease-fire, but it’s unclear when that will be reached and whether it will freeze the fighting in the north.

Israel is demanding the safe return of some 80,000 civilians evacuated from the north, along with a plan to ensure their future protection. Hezbollah is one of Iran’s star proxies with some 120,000 rockets at its disposal, a threat far larger than Hamas.

And Israeli officials are sensitive to long-term security after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, when the Palestinian militant group invaded southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people, also taking roughly 250 hostages. 

A diplomatic solution acceptable to Israel would likely involve enforcement of a United Nations resolution introduced following the 2006 Israeli offensive into Lebanon, which stipulated a demilitarized zone between the Litani River and a U.N.-drawn demarcation line called the Blue Line.

Gregory Gause, professor of international affairs at Texas A&M, said Israel will be looking for an opportunity to strike Hezbollah in a major operation after a cease-fire in Gaza unless the Lebanese militant group agrees to draw back its forces from the border. 

“It's just a matter of time, whether it's this particular Hezbollah attack, or something later, that we're going to see some kind of Israeli military action in the north,” he said. 

Even with the constant firing over the border, Hezbollah has not sought to escalate the conflict. Hezbollah officials denied playing any role in the Golan Heights attack, though Israel has shown evidence that it was likely a rocket fired by the militant group, a claim the U.S. has backed.  

How Israel responds to the Golan Heights strike will be decisive.  

Rubin, at the Middle East Forum, said Israeli officials are facing pressure to show they will stand up for the Druze minority population, who inhabit an area that Israel took from Syria in 1967. 

”The Druze have been tremendously loyal to Israel, and if Israel doesn't respond, it doesn't react to avenge the deaths of these Druze children, then that's going to be a major problem within Israel,” he said. “I suspect you're going to see a multiday campaign that's going to hit deep into Lebanon, striking Hezbollah military sites.” 

Biden administration officials have been in the region for months trying to defuse the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, to little success.  

Netanyahu said in his joint address to Congress last week that he prefers a diplomatic solution but that he was not afraid of a military option. The choice of war has been promoted by far-right leaders in his Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. 

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday that he was “confident” they could still secure a diplomatic solution and that “there's still time and space for diplomacy.” 

“We’ve all heard about this all-out war scenario. Now, multiple points over the last 10 months, those predictions were exaggerated,” he said. “But nobody wants a broader war, and I'm confident that we'll be able to avoid such an outcome.” 

Kirby added that Israel “has every right to respond” to Hezbollah’s attacks. 

“No nation should have to live with this kind of threat,” he said. “What's really important is that we continue these diplomatic conversations with both sides, and we are and we will to try to reduce the tensions.” 

Still, each round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be dragging them closer toward war and further from a diplomatic agreement. 

Amikam Norkin, a retired commander of the Israeli Air Force, said the fighting with Hezbollah risks that “everyday something might happen” like the Golan Heights strike. 

“From day to day, we are moving toward military activities and less toward diplomatic agreement,” said Norkin, now a distinguished fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which held a briefing Monday. “But I think that the decision should be taken [when] we get a cease-fire Gaza.”