The last time Israel went to war with Hizbollah in 2006, it threatened to “turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years” and drive the militant movement from the border. When the conflict ended a month later, Hizbollah had been battered and bruised but its fighters remained in place.
The back-to-back assassinations of senior figures in Hizbollah and its ally Hamas this week have intensified fears that the two arch foes — which have traded blows with increasing intensity since Hamas’s October 7 attack — are once more sliding towards all-out war.
A full-blown conflict would pit the Middle East’s most sophisticated military, bolstered by advanced western hardware and weaponry, against arguably the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor. The capabilities of both Israel and Iran-backed Hizbollah have also evolved since that last conflagration 18 years ago, which threatens to make the next conflict that would likely draw in others even more destructive.