How will Hezbollah respond to Israel's killing of Hamas leader in Beirut?

Israel's war on Gaza entered a new phase when Saleh Arouri, one of Hamas's top leaders with close ties to the Iran-backed Hezbollah, was killed in a missile attack in Beirut, Lebanon, in the first week of 2024.

The killing came amid an all-out Israeli war on Gaza since October 7 in response to a cross-border assault by Hamas. The indiscriminate bombing and ground operations have killed nearly 23,000 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, and left the besieged enclave in complete ruins.

The assassination of Arouri could, however, open a new front in the war, with Hezbollah warning of an appropriate response.

While Tel Aviv has not claimed responsibility for the targeted killing, the assassination has all the hallmarks of previous Israel's plots against senior Hamas leaders.

The attack has raised global fears over the possible escalation of the Gaza war into a regional conflict across the Middle East. This could bring Israel and the Iran-led axis of resistance – which includes Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis – into direct conflict.

Tel Aviv and Hezbollah have exchanged rocket attacks across the tense Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 cross-border operations. Israeli and Hezbollah leaderships have previously threatened each other not to escalate tensions.

The killing of Arouri in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut has prompted many experts to analyse the possible response by the Lebanese group.

"It does not seem to be possible that Hezbollah can declare an all-out war against Israel even after the Arouri killing," says Idris Okuducu, a Beirut-based political analyst. Hezbollah's most aggressive response to the Arouri killing might be amounting to only more rocket attacks against Israeli border areas, he tells TRT World.

Okuducu's analysis is based on increasing Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets across the 120km border between Israel and Lebanon.

While Israel has pounded Hezbollah targets very aggressively in recent 45 days, the Iran-backed group, which lost 139 members to these attacks, has not responded to Tel Aviv in kind, according to Okuducu.

"All this may have led to an Israeli conclusion that Hezbollah's capacity might not be as high as it has been recounted by different media accounts," Okuducu says. As a result, Israel was confident that even though it killed an important Hamas figure like Arouri in Lebanon, Hezbollah would not respond in a very damaging way to Tel Aviv, says the analyst.

Other experts have a similar take to Okuducu.

“The dilemma for Hezbollah is how to respond by sending a deterrent message to Israel without dragging them into all-out war,” Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, was quoted as saying in a report.

Maha Yahya, an expert at the Carnegie Middle East Center, also expressed similar views.

"I don't think Hezbollah will be willing to drag Lebanon into a major conflict at this particular moment and time given the situation regionally," Yahya said.

However, after Tuesday's killing, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that if Israel goes for a full-fledged war in Lebanon, his group will "fight without restraint, without rules, without limits and without restrictions" against Israel.

But he also added that "for now", the group is fighting alongside border areas "following meticulous calculations", signalling Hezbollah's cautious approach toward Israel and the Gaza war.

Too many fires

The Arouri killing happened a day before the fourth anniversary of the US assassination of Iran's top general Qassem Soleimani, who was largely credited for the creation of the axis of resistance forces, ranging from Lebanon to Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

A twin explosion near Soleimani's tomb in Kerman, which killed more than 80 people commemorating his death anniversary, has been claimed by Daesh. However, Iran has accused both the US and Israel of being behind the attacks.

Before Arouri's assassination, Israel also killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior adviser in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in Syria in late December.

The chain of these events signals that Israel is purposely escalating tensions with Iran and its allies, aiming to force Hezbollah into a direct engagement with Tel Aviv, according to Okuducu.

"Netanyahu and the Israeli army clearly crossed all the red lines of Hezbollah with their recent actions. This indeed means an indirect declaration of war on the group," he says.

But opening another front north of Israel against Hezbollah might complicate Israel's war on Gaza.

The Houthis have already created too many complications across the Red Sea with their targeting of Israel-linked vessels and saying that they are supporting Palestinian resistance against Israeli aggression. Both the Hezbollah-Israel border tension and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have increased global fears that the Gaza war can quickly turn into a regional conflict.

But Israel's top political and military leaders have previously claimed that they are ready for a multi-front war. "We are highly prepared for any scenario," said IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari following Arouri's killing.

“We feel and we’re afraid of it,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said, referring to growing fears of a regional war.

“We don’t want any escalation in the war. … We don’t like a regional war because it’s dangerous to everybody. Dangerous to Lebanon, dangerous to Israel and to the countries surrounding Israel. A regional war is bad for everybody,” he said.

Worsening Lebanese conditions

Compared to the war in 2006, when Hezbollah inflicted a serious blow to Israel's muscular image shaped by numerous battles with various Arab armies in the last 75 years, the current situation in Lebanon is much different, complicating Hezbollah's response to the Arouri killing, according to Okuducu.

Even back in 2006, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had reportedly expressed regret over the war, which was triggered by the Lebanese group's capture of two Israeli soldiers.

"We did not think, even one percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not," Nasrallah said in a 2006 interview aired on Lebanon's New TV station.

Following Arouri's killing, Nasrallah has appeared to sound a similar approach to his 2006 interview, saying that the group pursues "meticulous calculations".

"Since 2019, Beirut has gone through a terrible economic crisis aggravated by the country's political problems, becoming a significantly weaker country than 2006's Lebanon," says Okuducu. Hezbollah's popularity among Arab nations has also decreased due to the group's controversial role in the Syrian civil war, he adds.

As a result, Hezbollah does not want to have another all-out war with Israel but aims to have a low-intensity conflict concentrating on border areas, he says. But Tel Aviv has another approach, which is either complete border stability or a full-fledged war, adds Okuducu.