When the US and France launched a call for a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, they were confident that Benjamin Netanyahu backed it. A day later, still in New York for the UN general assembly meeting, the Israeli prime minister approved the airstrike on Beirut that killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.
Many in Lebanon – as well as in Israel, Syria and elsewhere – will not mourn a man with so much blood on his hands. But they are terrified. More than 1,000 people in Lebanon have reportedly been killed in the past week. Almost a fifth of the population is said to be displaced; families are sleeping in the streets. With bombs still falling, and the threat of a ground invasion looming, Mr Netanyahu said that Israel’s work was not completed.
Hezbollah believed that contained escalation was possible when it launched rocket attacks on Israel after the Hamas atrocities on 7 October. Israel has proved it wrong, taking leaps up the escalation ladder that include what appear to be clear breaches of international law. In doing so, it has humiliated not only Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, but the US and Joe Biden personally.
US and French officials briefed that Mr Netanyahu had privately approved the Lebanon ceasefire that he then publicly rejected. Over months, the Israeli prime minister has periodically told Washington what it wants to hear, and then done whatever he wanted. As Israel feigned some interest in US diplomatic initiatives, it was planning the comprehensive assault on Hezbollah that has poured fuel on the flames. Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly treated his country’s staunchest and most essential ally with contempt, using the weapons it supplied. Tens of thousands lie dead in Gaza, and the Middle East is sliding towards the abyss weeks from the US election.
Hezbollah is now reeling. Senior political and military leaders have been killed; those who survive are beset by mutual suspicion. It faces pressure within Lebanon, from those furious at the state of the country and frightened the group is driving it to outright catastrophe. Iran does not want to be baited into a war on Israel’s terms; it has always relied on proxies. But Hezbollah was supposed to be protection against a direct Israeli attack. Now it wants to re-establish deterrence and reassure proxies without triggering the very fate it fears.
Israel wants its citizens to be able to return to their homes in the north. Many more Lebanese citizens are displaced, and Israel has launched four times as many attacks on Hezbollah as vice versa in recent months. But Hezbollah still has tens of thousands of fighters and a large arsenal. When Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel this spring, Arab states helped Israel to see off the drones and missiles. It can’t expect that again. And Tehran may see accelerating its nuclear programme as the key to future security – though that would itself increase the risk of a big Israeli attack.
The failure of Mr Biden’s embrace of Mr Netanyahu is starker than ever. The president should tell him that the US will not continue to supply weaponry so that Israel can recklessly ignore it. As world leaders have insisted, a ceasefire in Lebanon is the immediate priority. But only a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza too – and beyond that, the creation of a Palestinian state – can bring the region peace.
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