Did Israel just let the dogs of war out?

On Monday, Israel conducted airstrikes on Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of 356 individuals, including 24 children and 42 women. A further 1,246 have been wounded according to Lebanon's health ministry. One Lebanese official said it was the country's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters that 89 temporary shelters in schools and the like have been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians who fled "Israeli atrocities."

Meanwhile Israel maintains their strike was not on Lebanon but Hezbollah and only targeted what they claim are Hezbollah targets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people.

"Israel's war is not with you; it's with Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he said.

Although neither side is calling this a war, this strike puts the Middle East perilously close to an all-out one. Former US Defense Secretary and ex-CIA chief Leon Panetta told CNN the situation has "crossed a threshold" and warned that "we're clearly walking into a much wider war."

Why did we get here?

Israeli officials had hoped that by intensifying their attacks over the past week — striking Hezbollah's communications tools, and killing several important commanders as well as Lebanese citizens — they would unnerve the group and persuade it to pull off from the Israel-Lebanon border.

The officials thought that if they raised the cost of Hezbollah's campaign, it would be simpler for foreign diplomats such as Senior United States Envoy Amos Hochstein to persuade the group to stop.

But it is an excuse that sounds increasingly hollow as Israel's attempts to scare Hezbollah into submission has so far not borne fruit. Israel has been launching escalatory strikes for days, but Hezbollah has promised not to buckle under the strain.

Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that Israel claims the attack on Lebanon aims to secure the return of 60,000 displaced people to northern Israel.

"But this could have been achieved by a deal if Israel had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza," he said, adding, "Israel was not ready to put an end to the war in Gaza, so here we are now in another war on a very big scale." 

He also warned that the war in Lebanon was "just beginning", but even after months of attacks "nothing will be achieved". "Even if anything is achieved, it will be the same that could have been achieved yesterday through diplomacy."

The leaders of Hezbollah have declared they will keep attacking until Israel and Hamas, the militia's ally, reach an understanding on a cease-fire for Gaza.

With its deepest strikes since the start of the war in October, Hezbollah fired dozens of missiles at targets roughly 30 miles inside Israel on Sunday morning; one of its top officials cautioned that this was only the beginning.

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has even dared Israel to attack southern Lebanon, an action that could equally reasonably result in a protracted deadlock as an Israeli triumph.
 

Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that Israel claims the attack on Lebanon aims to secure the return of 60,000 displaced people to northern Israel. "But this could have been achieved by a deal if Israel had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza," he said, adding, "Israel was not ready to put an end to the war in Gaza, so here we are now in another war on a very big scale." 

What happens next?

A ground invasion of Lebanon did not seem imminent as of Monday, even as Israel intensified its strikes and warned civilians to evacuate villages where it said Hezbollah was storing weapons. 

Israel's chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the current focus was on an aerial campaign, not a ground operation.

De-escalation through escalation is a very tricky gamble. But if other forms of military pressure does not work, a full scale invasion would be one of the few military options left to the country's leadership.

The Israeli Army is already stretched thin; still fighting in Gaza and increasing activities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where it conducts frequent raids on Palestinian cities.  

Military analysts have debated Israel's ability to fight three land conflicts at once, particularly given the challenges posed by an invasion of Lebanon.

Pre-emptive strikes, Israel's sabotage campaign, and airstrikes against storage facilities and rocket launchers seem to have caught Hezbollah somewhat off-guard. 

The group has not yet answered meaningfully. In response to Monday's strike, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel.

Given many top officials have been killed or injured in the past week, Hezbollah's activities are probably chaotic.

Israel has so far mostly left Beirut alone, but should Hezbollah not budge the matter of moving north of the Litani River, bombardments of targets both here and elsewhere could follow. Should that fail, Israel will probably be compelled to drive Hezbollah out by ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

That has not transpired in nearly two decades. Although this would constitute a substantial military expansion for Netanyahu's government, there does seem to be widespread political backing. 

Benny Gantz, the chairman of the National Unity Party, who resigned from Israel's wartime cabinet in June, declared on Monday that he would endorse a ground invasion of Lebanon if it is necessary.

A ground invasion into Southern Lebanon would be required if the IDF is unable to take out Hezbollah's positions, weapons stockpiles, and launch sites in the area between the border and the Litani River. 

This would entail raids, sweeping through the region with armoured units, artillery, infantry, and Special Forces aimed at Hezbollah positions.

Given the risk to ground forces, Israel would rather not do this. Israel's military still has not been able to defeat Hamas in Gaza following 11 months of fighting. 

Furthermore, Hezbollah rules a more extensive and mountainous territory than Hamas does in Gaza. Apart from more sophisticated fortifications, the Lebanese militia is also usually regarded to have a better trained army than Hamas has.

The Israeli military would most likely have to call on thousands of reservists to invade Lebanon; many of them are already tired from serving in Gaza during the past year.

However, if it believes that a ground invasion is required, it may try, as it has in Gaza, to use aerial bombardment to soften the battlefield as much as possible before deploying ground forces.

Of allies and proxies

The escalation highlights another US failure, this time in diplomatic efforts to keep the conflict from spreading.

Despite growing global outrage over Israel's actions in Gaza, the United States has continued to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic protection while attempting to persuade Israel's enemies to exercise restraint.

Ibrahim Fraihat, professor of international conflict resolution at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera "Nearly 500 civilians were killed in one day. The most surprising is the silence of the Western governments. There have been no real statements, no real pressure on the Israeli government to stop its attacks."

It seems Israel's biggest ally, the US, is fearing an all-out war in the region. The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major democracies, which the US is a part of, warned that the Middle East risked being dragged into a broader conflict that no country would gain from, according to a statement released after meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reportedly had back-to-back calls with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the weekend as he pressed for a cease-fire and a reduction of tensions in the region.

Another very important question is: What will Iran do now?

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took to social media site X to say Tehran will "not remain indifferent" to Israel's actions in Lebanon and Gaza.

"Israel's crimes, enabled by the US, are crystal clear for the world to witness. Do not look away," Araghchi said on X.

"This brutal and criminal disregard for human life cannot be permitted to continue."

However, it might be in Tehran's best interest to press for a speedy resolution in order to keep Hezbollah intact because it might not want to lose the largest proxy force in the area. 

If Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear sites—a problem that is still simmering beneath the surface of an increasingly volatile regional conflict—Hezbollah would be a crucial component of the retaliatory effort.