In the week of Oct. 8, 2023, the Israeli War Cabinet deliberated over a proposal to take the initiative against Hezbollah by responding to its attacks with a surprise full-scale invasion. The argument raised against this was that it would be strategic folly to attempt a full-scale war on two fronts and that decimating Hamas must be the priority. The latter view won out and it was decided to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks tit for tat, in what would become a war of attrition now entering its tenth month. 

This decision may have been correct given the limited resources at our disposal and the scale of the task which lay before us in Gaza, but it entailed the heavy price of allowing the north to burn and its residents to be displaced, risking a longer-term loss of sovereignty in what has become a security buffer zone within Israel’s own territory. Since then, every time the specter of escalation in the north has arisen, Israel has chosen restraint, all in the name of completing the first phase of the reconquest of Gaza from Hamas.

But that phase was essentially completed over a month ago. Israel has attained the ability to maneuver throughout the entire Strip, including in Rafah and critically along the border with Egypt. It has now shifted to a less intense level of fighting, focusing on the slower and arduous task of fully eliminating Hamas presence through targeted raids, clearing the maze of underground terror tunnels, and gradually dismantling Hamas’s command structure. This new phase is expected to take many months, perhaps years, and so Israel can no longer justify waiting for its completion to turn its attention to the north. 

As soon as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from his vital visit to the United States, the time had come to shift the center of gravity of Israel’s efforts northwards. Therefore, it would be a mistake to view the events of the past week as merely another round of tit for tat following the terrible attack on Majdal Shams. That attack is not the reason Israel must increase the intensity of the fighting against Hezbollah, but rather a symptom which serves to demonstrate just how necessary is a shift of focus.

It would be preferable for Israel to now launch a surprise all-out war against Hezbollah with the goals of destroying its missile stockpiles and disbanding it as an organization, as U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 requires. It is never a convenient time to start a war, and the current case is certainly no exception, but it highly unlikely that there will be a better opportunity for this inevitable war in the foreseeable future, and an opening surprise salvo against Hezbollah’s precision missiles would be of great advantage. Nonetheless, in view of the various constraints, it seems Israel is not likely to take such a drastic step.