We have seen the pattern now over and over again since October: The IDF or Hezbollah escalates from whatever form of attack it was carrying out before; the other side escalates back.
Within hours, the rhetoric commentators, statesmen, and defense officials shift to sounds something bordering more on war than the still relatively measured conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to date.
Act I of the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict showed a somewhat cowered and worried IDF, only responding to rocket and anti-tank missile attacks, but with no significant initiative or attempt to reframe the northern border in a way that would give evacuated residents the security to return.
Yet sometime after the IDF gained operational control over most of northern Gaza and started to take apart Hamas in the south, it did not face a major escalation from Hezbollah, yet it escalated.
Without any one specific ultimatum, in early to mid-December, the IDF started to attack all Radwan Hezbollah forces across southern Lebanon – passing the point of just responding to attacks.
This included hitting the terror group in a variety of villages that it had used as large-scale human shields to avoid being targeted, and not just attacking terrorists in open areas.
At first, Hezbollah’s counter-escalation was increased drone attacks alongside its regular rocket attacks and a somewhat increased volume of rockets, including some days with three rounds of attacks.
By late December, it appeared that Hezbollah was undertaking a tactical retreat, withdrawing between 50% to 75% of its Radwan forces to avoid them being killed, while also refraining from a true spike in attacks on Israel, which might change the balance of power, but could also lead to a general war.
Israel's targeted killings of terrorists in January
Everything changed in January: Israel assassinated Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri while he was visiting Beirut from Qatar.
Hezbollah responded with dozens of rocket attacks, anti-tank missiles, and increased attack drones simultaneously, striking and damaging an important air force base on Mount Meron.
Over weeks starting from January 2, the IDF killed (according to Hezbollah and foreign media, and confirmed by The Jerusalem Post) Wissam al-Tawil, known as Jawad, a key Radwan operations commander in southern Lebanon.
On January 9, IDF Chief Spokesman Daniel Hagari said the air force killed Hezbollah’s drone chief Ali Hussein Bergi earlier that day, who “directed dozens of drone attacks against Israel, and was responsible for an attack in which two drones struck the IDF Northern Command’s base,” he said.
The escalations started to move faster and became harder to even keep track of.
On January 16, the IDF attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in Wadi Saluki in southern Lebanon, in a significant escalation. The military blanketed the area with missiles and shells where it said Hezbollah concealed large numbers of military buildings, infrastructure, and weapons.
According to the IDF, Hezbollah repeatedly used the area to carry out attacks against both soldiers and civilians.
Hezbollah had killed two civilians when it fired an anti-tank missile at a civilian residence in Yuval shortly before.
On January 25, the IDF attacked a key Hezbollah-Iran airstrip at Kilat Jaber for launching aerial attacks against Israel in a major escalation between the sides.
On February 8, senior Hezbollah military commander Abbas al Dabs, known as Hajj Abdullah, was killed in an alleged Israeli drone strike, Sky News Arabia and other Arab media reported.
On February 12, an Israeli drone carried out a targeted attack in Bint Jbeil in Lebanon, the IDF said, with Arab media reports saying the target was a senior Hezbollah commander.
For its part, Hezbollah attacked the IDF Meron base repeatedly, but also tried its first attack on the Northern Command, hitting inside the base, but against a side area with no casualties.
Later, Hezbollah hit the Northern Command base more severely, killing a soldier. There were also multiple times that Hezbollah shot down IDF drones.
On February 26, the IDF hit Hezbollah assets at Baalbek, around 100 km. from the border, and the deepest in Lebanon it had hit in years.
Hezbollah fired around 60 rockets on the Golan, widening its attack surface beyond the standard northern Galilee border. Hamas-associated groups had fired small numbers of rockets on Israel from Syria against the Golan, but Hezbollah had mostly refrained and certainly had not fired anywhere near that volume.
Continuing the rounds of retaliation, the IDF later said it had killed senior Hezbollah official Hassan Hussein Salami in an airstrike on southern Lebanon.
Salami, whose rank is equivalent to that of a brigade commander, was hit on the way to the southern Lebanon village of Majadel, and, unusually, it was one of the rare cases where the IDF intentionally took credit.
According to the IDF, Salami commanded one of Hezbollah’s regional units, including managing attacks on IDF troops and Israeli communities in northern Israel, especially Kiryat Shmona.
Further, it said Salami was involved in directing the Hezbollah attack on the IDF’s base for Brigade 769.
Earlier this week, the IDF struck multiple strategic assets of Hezbollah deep in Lebanon, again in the Baalbek area, destroying drone and longer-range rocket bases, according to a mix of IDF and ALMA think tank statements and analyses.
Hezbollah responded with more than 100 rockets in both the Galilee and the Golan, again increasing the attack surface area and volume of attacks.
After all of that, the fact remains that after each escalation for several days, there has eventually been a de-escalation.
Even 100 rockets from Hezbollah do not compare to the 8,000 rockets per day that it could potentially fire on Israel, including hitting strategic areas of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ben-Gurion Airport.
Even hitting the higher-ranking Hezbollah officials and Baalbek three times in the last month, the IDF has carefully avoided killing larger numbers of Hezbollah forces and key symbols of its rule in Beirut.
The 330 Hezbollah terrorists Israel has killed are nothing compared to the likely 14,000 Hamas forces it has killed.
And Israel has not tried to invade southern Lebanon with ground forces in any way.
Another way of explaining things is that there has been no war because each side, even when it escalates, is doing so in a more measured way than things seem. Each side also consistently says publicly that it wants to avoid a general war.
Also, both the IDF and Hezbollah have achieved much of their objectives,
The IDF has moved around 90% of Hezbollah’s Radwan forces north of the Litani River and destroyed around 100% of Hezbollah’s lookout posts on the border.
Hezbollah has said it will stop firing when Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire, so if there is a ceasefire next week, Israel will have most of what it wants.
Likewise, Hezbollah wanted to show the region that it could bleed Israel. It has. Over 80,000 Israelis had to evacuate the North, and over 50,000 are still evacuated five months later.
The terror group has managed to maintain rocket fire on Israel for five months without being forced to stop.
Israel would like all the Radwan forces permanently expelled from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah would like to have lost fewer assets, but no one expects to achieve everything they want in war.
Simply put: absent a gross miscalculation on one side or the other, the mutual interests of both sides are to avoid a general war, and nothing about that has changed from October until now.