Israel cannot allow Hezbollah to continue firing into its territory with impunity, nor can it leave its citizens in the north living in fear, waiting for the next rocket to fall.
In 2002, as Hamas launched its first rudimentary rockets at Israel, their range barely stretched a mile, with most of their targets being the Israeli settlements that still existed at the time in the Gaza Strip. It was a primitive, yet ominous beginning to what would eventually evolve into one of Israel’s greatest threats.
As the rocket fire intensified, Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister at the time, faced mounting pressure from his right-wing base to respond decisively. “If the rockets were falling on Tel Aviv, Israel would retaliate!” claimed the settlers, who felt abandoned. To them, the government’s inaction was proof that it valued Tel Aviv’s safety far more than the lives of those living in Gaza’s settlements.
A seasoned politician, Sharon pushed back: “The rule for Netzarim is like the rule for Tel Aviv,” he said at the time, naming one of Gaza’s settlements and emphasizing that an attack on any part of Israel would prompt the same response.
It was a noble sentiment, but nice phrases rarely stand the test of reality. Years passed without a significant Israeli military response to the rocket attacks. In fact, it wasn’t until 2008, when Hamas demonstrated the ability to fire rockets that reached closer to Tel Aviv, that Israel finally launched a large-scale military operation aimed at curbing Hamas’s capabilities. Meanwhile, the thousands of rockets that had rained down on Gaza’s settlements before their evacuation in 2005 did not seem to warrant the same level of urgency.
Fast forward to today, and the “Netzarim is Tel Aviv” mantra is back in circulation, this time in relation to Hezbollah’s barrage of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and drones targeting northern Israel. For 11 months now, communities along Israel’s northern border have endured a relentless assault, yet Israel’s response has been notably restrained. While the Israeli Air Force has carried out strikes against Hezbollah positions, particularly in southern Lebanon, the overall strategy has been one of caution, seemingly designed to avoid a full-scale war.
This stands in stark contrast to Israel’s reaction to attacks on Tel Aviv. When a single Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv earlier this year, Israel’s response was swift and brutal. Within hours, Israel launched a massive airstrike on the Houthi-controlled Hudaydah port in Yemen, signaling to the world that any attack on the nation’s metropolitan center would not go unanswered.
The discrepancy in responses is glaring. Despite Hezbollah’s bombardment of northern Israel, and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians from these areas, the government has not committed to the same level of force. Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles into towns like Metula, where over 200 homes have been destroyed. And yet, instead of striking Hezbollah decisively, Israel has allowed the attacks to continue, operating under the belief that so long as the homes are empty and no lives are lost, it might stave off war.
Would Tel Aviv be treated the same way? The answer is obvious. Had Hezbollah been targeting Israel’s commercial and cultural center, there is little doubt that Israel’s response would be far more aggressive. Yet in the north, the strategy has been to evacuate and hope for the best, leaving swathes of Israeli territory abandoned and exposed to enemy fire.
Israel’s current options are bleak. Hezbollah has stated that it will continue its attacks until the war in Gaza ends, yet a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel appears increasingly unlikely. Both sides have hardened their positions, making a deal distant. As a result, the status quo of daily rocket fire into northern Israel drags on.
One option is for Israel to launch a large-scale military operation against Hezbollah, a move that would almost certainly degrade the terrorist group’s capabilities but at a significant cost. Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles and is believed to have the ability to fire up to 5,000 projectiles per day in the early stages of a war. Israel’s missile defense systems, as sophisticated as they are, would be overwhelmed by such a barrage. The Israeli home front would experience devastation on a scale never before seen.
But even if Hezbollah’s capabilities were degraded in a war, the problem would remain unresolved. Hezbollah is deeply entrenched across Israel’s northern border, well-armed and emboldened by Iranian support. Once the dust settles and displaced Israelis begin to return to their homes, how can they feel secure knowing that Hezbollah is still just over the horizon?
The other option is to hold out for a ceasefire with Hamas, with the hope that it will also lead to a halt in Hezbollah’s attacks. This is the scenario many in the international community, including the United States, are rooting for. There is a belief that once the war in Gaza ends, Hezbollah will also stop attacking, and perhaps then will also pull its forces away from the border. But what if that doesn’t happen? What if Hezbollah continues its attacks despite a ceasefire in Gaza or does not move its forces from the border? Would Israel not be forced to go to war with Hezbollah anyway, to ensure the safety of its northern citizens?
It is daunting, but one thing is clear: the current situation is unsustainable. Israel cannot allow Hezbollah to continue firing into its territory with impunity, nor can it leave its citizens in the north living in fear, waiting for the next rocket to fall.
The time for difficult decisions has come. The Netanyahu government cannot afford to wait much longer.