With ally Hamas under attack in Gaza, the head of Iran’s Quds Force visited Beirut in February to discuss the risk posed if Israel next aims at Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an offensive that could severely hurt Tehran’s main regional partner, seven sources said.
In Beirut, Quds chief Esmail Qaani met Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the sources said, for at least the third time since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel and Israel’s devastating retaliatory assault on Gaza.
The conversation turned to the possibility of a full Israeli offensive to its north, in Lebanon, the sources said. As well as damaging the Shia Islamist group, such an escalation could pressure Iran to react more forcefully than it has so far since October 7, three of the sources, Iranians within the inner circle of power, said.
Over the past five months, Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, has shown support for Hamas in the form of limited volleys of rockets fired across Israel’s northern border.
At the previously unreported meeting, Mr. Nasrallah reassured Mr. Qaani he did not want Iran to get sucked into a war with Israel or the United States and that Hezbollah would fight on its own, all the sources said.
“This is our fight,” Mr. Nasrallah told Mr. Qaani, said one Iranian source with knowledge of the discussions.
Calibrated to avoid a major escalation, the skirmishes in Lebanon have nonetheless pushed tens of thousands of people from their homes on either side of the border.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and some 50 civilians in Lebanon, while attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and six civilians.
In recent days, Israel’s counter-strikes have increased in intensity and reach.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant indicated in February that Israel planned to increase attacks to decisively remove Hezbollah fighters from the border in the event of a Gaza ceasefire, although he left the door open for diplomacy.
Israeli security sources have said previously that Israel did not seek any spread of hostilities but added that the country was prepared to fight on new fronts if needed.
Iran and Hezbollah are mindful of the grave perils of a wider war in Lebanon, two of the sources aligned with the views of the government in Tehran said, including the danger it could spread and lead to strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations.
The U.S. lists Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and has sought for years to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program. Israel has long considered Iran an existential threat.
Two U.S. sources and an Israeli source on request of anonymity, said Iran wanted to avoid blowback from an Israel-Hezbollah war.
The Beirut meeting highlights strain on Iran’s strategy of avoiding major escalation in the region while projecting strength and support for Gaza across the West Asia through allied armed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, analysts said.
In Israel’s sights
Between them, Mr. Qaani and Mr. Nasrallah hold sway over tens of thousands of fighters and a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles. They are the main protagonists in Tehran’s network of allies and proxy militias, with Mr. Qaani’s elite Quds Force acting as the foreign legion of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
While Hezbollah has publicly indicated it would halt attacks on Israel when the Israeli offensive in Gaza stops, U.S. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said last week a Gaza truce would not automatically trigger calm in southern Lebanon.
Arab and Western diplomats report that Israel has expressed strong determination to no longer allow the presence of Hezbollah’s main fighters along the border, fearing an attack similar to Hamas’s incursion that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages.
Israel’s retaliatory assault in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians and laid waste to the coastal enclave.
A senior Israeli official agreed that Iran was not seeking a full-blown war, noting Tehran’s restrained response to Israel’s offensive on Hamas.
“It seems that they feel they face a credible military threat. But that threat may need to become more credible,” the official said.
A war in Lebanon that seriously degrades Hezbollah would be a major blow for Iran, which relies on the group founded with its support in 1982 as a bulwark against Israel and to buttress its interests in the broader region, two regional sources said.
“Hezbollah is the first line of defence for Iran,” said Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank in Yemen.
If Israel were to launch major military action on Hezbollah, the Iranian sources within the inner circle of power said, Tehran may find itself compelled to intensify its proxy war.
According to the Iranian insider, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not inclined to see a war unfold on Iran, where domestic discontent with the ruling system last year spilled over into mass protests.
“The Iranians are pragmatists and they are afraid of the expansion of the war,” said Iryani
.“If Israel were alone, they would fight, but they know that if the war expands, the United States will be drawn in.”
