With all quiet, for now, on the Iran front, Israel turns its sights on Hezbollah

IDF expands operations in Lebanon despite ceasefire with Tehran, while US seeks to contain fallout, leaving trajectory of northern fighting increasingly unclear

The 38-day US-Israel war on Iran came to an abrupt halt on Tuesday night with the announcement of a two-week ceasefire — but whether it extends to Lebanon remains a deeply contested question, setting the stage for continued escalation on that front.

Iran has warned it could resume fighting if Israel continues to strike Hezbollah, insisting its 10-point proposal submitted to the United States included a cessation of fighting in Lebanon. Pakistani mediators publicly echoed that claim, while Hezbollah signaled it would treat Israeli operations as a violation.

“The agreement includes Lebanon,” Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim Al-Moussawi said, warning of a response from Iran and its allies if Israel did not comply.

Israel, however, has firmly rejected that narrative, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserting on Wednesday that Lebanon is not part of the deal.

Israel “will continue to strike Hezbollah wherever necessary,” Netanyahu said in a subsequent X post on Thursday.

US Vice President JD Vance, who is set to lead the US negotiating team in Islamabad, appeared to back Israel’s position, though describing the dispute as a “legitimate misunderstanding” that led Iran to believe that Lebanon was covered by the ceasefire, while simultaneously noting Israel had offered to show some restraint in Lebanon to preserve negotiations.

“In any case, right now, it seems that there is no ceasefire on the Lebanese front,” Sarit Zehavi, head of the Alma Research and Education Center, which studies Israel’s security challenges in the north, told The Times of Israel. “Israel will continue attacking Hezbollah, and Hezbollah will continue attacking Israel.”

Indeed, there has been little sign of de-escalation. Within hours of the ceasefire announcement, Israel launched its largest wave of strikes yet against Hezbollah — some 160 bombs on 100 targets in just 10 minutes — underscoring that, ceasefire or not, the Lebanon front is far from quiet.

Those strikes continued into Thursday, with the IDF saying it struck weapon depots, rocket launchers and Hezbollah headquarters in south Lebanon.

Israel is also operating on the ground. The military says it aims to establish a demilitarized “security zone” in southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, and will remain deployed there until the Hezbollah threat is removed.

Hezbollah, for its part, responded to Israel’s continued strikes with waves of rocket fire, triggering sirens across northern Israel. One overnight attack on Friday set off red alerts as far south as Tel Aviv and even the port city of Ashdod.

The developments point to a decoupling of the Iran and Lebanon fronts, leaving the trajectory of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict uncertain. Experts warn the fighting is unlikely to wind down anytime soon, as the Iran ceasefire frees Israel to concentrate more of its military effort on its northern adversary.

Balancing strategy and US pressure

“Israel wants to reach a point at which, in southern Lebanon, there are no more Hezbollah weapons that threaten it,” Zehavi said. As a northern resident who has lived under the Hezbollah threat for decades, she said local expectations are that the government will disarm the group at least south of the Litani.

“I think there is an opportunity to do that now,” she said.

According to Middle East Forum executive director Gregg Roman, that goal is increasingly reflected in Israel’s strategic thinking.

“Israel’s objectives in Lebanon have consolidated around three pillars: establishing a permanent security zone south of the Litani, sustained attrition of Hezbollah’s personnel and assets, and pressuring Beirut to disarm Hezbollah through its own political processes,” Roman told The Times of Israel. “The likelihood of Israel pausing any of these because of the Iran ceasefire is zero.”

At the same time, Zehavi stressed that Israel’s campaign is still shaped by Washington’s influence, noting that a complete pause in operations will depend on “how significant the American pressure will be.”

Iran ceasefire frees Israel’s northern focus

While the future of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon remains unclear, Roman said the ceasefire with Iran has, for now, enabled Israel to shift its focus northward.

He noted that the pause in strikes on Iranian targets gives Israel greater operational freedom to intensify its campaign in Lebanon, with the IDF no longer preoccupied by the Islamic Republic.

“The evidence is already in,” he said, pointing to Wednesday’s large-scale operation. “With Iranian missile barrages suspended, Israel can redirect air defense assets, intelligence capacity and precision munitions toward the Lebanon front.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir appeared to confirm the shift in focus on Friday morning, describing the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon as the military’s “primary combat zone.”

Hezbollah weakened, but still dangerous

Since joining the fighting a day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, Hezbollah has seen its capabilities significantly degraded by sustained Israeli operations.

According to Roman, Hezbollah is currently at its weakest since its founding in 1982, but he emphasized that “weakest” is a relative term.

“The group still launches roughly 150 projectiles daily, has deployed first-person-view drones as a tactical innovation, and has coordinated strikes with IRGC operations,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah remains “operationally dangerous at the tactical level.”

Alongside its military campaign, Jerusalem has also signaled openness to diplomacy with Beirut.

On Thursday evening, Netanyahu said that Israel would begin negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible,” with talks focusing on “disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon.”

His comments came after US President Donald Trump urged him in a phone call to scale back strikes in Lebanon to avoid jeopardizing the ceasefire with Iran.

Even so, Netanyahu later emphasized in a video message to northern residents that “there is no ceasefire in Lebanon,” and that the IDF would continue its operations alongside diplomatic efforts.

Zehavi warned that relying on the Lebanese government alone is unlikely to bring about Hezbollah’s disarmament, noting that similar arrangements in the past have failed to produce meaningful results.

“We are hoping that, more or less, [these military operations] will bring about a better deal,” she said. “The 2024 deal was reliant on 2006’s logic, and in both cases, that logic just didn’t work.”

She was referring to past arrangements between Israel and the Lebanese government, including the framework that followed the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which sought to curb Hezbollah’s military presence in southern Lebanon but ultimately failed to disarm the group.

Despite those agreements, Hezbollah has retained significant capabilities, with the Alma Center estimating that, in the days leading up to Operation Roaring Lion on February 28, the group possessed as many as 25,000 rockets and missiles — mostly short- and medium-range — along with roughly 1,000 suicide drones.

“I believe that once [Israel] has exhausted its military efforts, it will want to reach a ceasefire,” Zehavi said. “But it will want a different ceasefire.”