Nasrallah threatens, but the Lebanese prefer to listen

Is Lebanon on the brink of war? The killing of a high-ranking Hamas official, presumably by an Israeli drone, is rekindling fears of a conflagration in the Middle East. Nevertheless, many Lebanese remain surprisingly calm.

Wednesday evening in Dahiyye, a suburb south of Beirut: in a hall, hundreds of supporters watch Hassan Nasrallah's speech spellbound. The Hezbollah leader's speech is broadcast live on large screens. Dahiyye is a stronghold of the Shiite militia, which is closely allied with Iran.

Nasrallah starts his eagerly awaited speech late. As usual, he appears dressed in dark clothes and wearing a black turban. When the Hezbollah leader speaks, life in Lebanon usually comes to a standstill. But not all Lebanese are hanging on his every word this evening. Ali, a young Shiite who is working in a hotel a few kilometers away at the same time, is typing away boredly on his cell phone. He is deliberately not watching the performance, says the 21-year-old from Beirut. "He won't do anything anyway. We Lebanese don't want a war." At the end of his shift, he will have his parents briefly summarize the speech, which is enough for him, says Ali.

For Lebanon, which is already economically devastated, an open war would be an absolute catastrophe. The country is bankrupt. Nasrallah knows this too - he is the one who decides on war and peace in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is a state within a state. Right at the beginning of his speech, he condemns the "blatant Israeli attack" in the strongest possible terms and vows retaliation. This will not go unpunished, he emphasizes. On Tuesday evening, Hamas leader Saleh al-Aruri was killed in an attack in Dahiyye. According to reports, the attack was carried out using a drone or guided missiles. Officially, Israel has not taken responsibility for the attack, but Hezbollah is not alone in assuming that it was an Israeli operation.

Hezbollah wants to avoid open warfare

Nasrallah's warning, at the very end of the one-and-a-half hour speech, is comparatively restrained, however. "If the enemy thinks of waging war against Lebanon, our fight will be limitless and without rules - and he knows what I mean by that." That sounds pithy, even threatening - but in his speech, which was already planned before al-Aruri's death, Nasrallah avoided any explanation as to whether his militia would intensify its attacks on Israel. For almost three months now, the neighbors on the border in the south of Lebanon have been firing rockets at each other. The day after Nasrallah's appearance, Hezbollah reported the death of four fighters.

An attack in the middle of Dahiyye seemed almost impossible until Tuesday. After all, half a million Lebanese live in the southern suburb of Beirut. Images of the attack on one of the busiest streets in South Beirut spread like lightning that evening. Nasrallah had already given a speech twice since the barbaric Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. Both times it became clear that, despite its ongoing skirmishes with Israel, Hezbollah wants to avoid an open war.

In a hairdressing salon in the Verdun district, about six kilometers away, the dozens of employees are briefly somewhat agitated when there is talk of an explosion. They try to reach relatives who live in the densely populated Dahiyye by telephone. But everything seems rather routine and not at all panicked. People who live here are used to crises. The customers' hair continues to be washed, blow-dried and styled. Business as usual.

The state has no influence over Hezbollah

There is soon talk of a drone and several deaths. Hamas later announces that Saleh al-Aruri, the deputy head of its politburo, was killed in the attack, along with six other Hamas officials. He was the second highest-ranking leader of the terrorist organization abroad. The central question after the attack was how Hezbollah would react.

Lebanon has been politically paralyzed for more than a year: the office of president is vacant and the government is only in office on a caretaker basis. But even if Lebanon were not in a complete political deadlock, the state would not be able to exert any influence on Hezbollah, says David Wood, Lebanon expert at the International Crisis Group. After all, Hezbollah is not only an armed militia, but also a political party and firmly rooted in the public life of the Cedar State. It provides ministers, is represented in parliament, participates in the country's public institutions and is involved in charitable work. Wood tells ntv.de that the state has no way of forcing Hezbollah to subject its decisions to official state scrutiny.

The organization, parts of which are classified as terrorist by the EU, is far more powerful and better armed than Hamas. It has an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets that are not subject to state control and has tens of thousands of fighters who only report to the party leadership. In addition, the militia has long-range missiles with which it could hit targets hundreds of kilometers away, such as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and southern Israel. In the event of war, Hezbollah could fire several thousand rockets a day at Israel - and thus possibly even overload Israel's modern interception systems.

Beirut normally booms at the end of the year

According to UN Resolution 1701, which was passed after the Lebanon war in 2006, Hezbollah is prohibited from operating near the border with Israel. But the idea that the government could use the Lebanese armed forces to force Hezbollah to withdraw and end the clashes on the border with Israel is not even part of the public debate, says David Wood. This is because the government would risk the disintegration of the army with such an action. There would be a risk of civil war.

Until now, the situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border has been reasonably clear. The population has become cautiously calm in recent weeks. Even though tens of thousands had to leave their homes in southern Lebanon due to the fighting, a major escalation was considered to have been averted. However, the economic cost of the military conflict is high - and palpable. Beirut normally booms around the Christmas and New Year holidays. During this time, many Lebanese living abroad come to visit. However, some have canceled their trip due to the tensions at the border.

Houssam Siafi, who works at reception in the Hamra Urban Gardens Hotel, has also noticed this. Bookings are subdued, he says. Many guests are asking whether Lebanon is still safe at all. He has always answered in the affirmative, says Siafi. Adam Ayoub is also unimpressed despite the weeks of fighting in the border area. The 18-year-old with long, brown curls works in a hip Beirut café. For the first fifteen to twenty days after October 7, he followed the news closely. But now he only reads the big headlines, he says as he routinely operates the levers of the coffee machine. Fear? Ayoub shakes his head. He doesn't have that. He hasn't known it any other way since he was born. Lebanon is war-torn. The last war with Israel was less than 20 years ago.

Instability and insecurity are part of life in this fragmented country. Until now, he has never really been politically active and has not belonged to any particular party, but the fact that Hezbollah is now actually fighting back somehow appeals to him, says Ayoub. "I support them because they are now defending our borders."

Nevertheless, he also wants peace above all else. His family has a house in the south. His father wants to check on things in the next few days, says the young Lebanese. The situation remains tense. The Hezbollah leader plans to address the public again on Friday.

Read also:

Despite the tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, many Lebanese remain resistant to the idea of a full-scale war. Ali, a young Shiite living in Beirut, expresses this sentiment by avoiding Nasrallah's speech and relying on summaries from his parents.Despite its ongoing skirmishes with Israel, Hezbollah has shown a desire to avoid an open war. In his speech following the attack on Saleh al-Aruri, Nasrallah's warnings were comparatively restrained, avoiding any specifics about intensifying attacks on Israel.If Hezbollah were to engage in open warfare with Israel, Lebanon would be severely impacted. As a militant group with close ties to Iran, Hezbollah has access to a large arsenal of weapons, including long-range missiles that could target major Israeli cities, posing a significant threat to Israel's security.

Source: www.ntv.de