Is Hizbullah stepping back from the brink of war?

IT WAS THE most momentous speech he ever gave, and it was underwhelming. On November 3rd Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, made his first remarks since the start of the war in Gaza almost a month ago. His militant group has been involved almost since the start, launching scores of rockets and, more recently, explosive-laden drones at northern Israel. It warned that it would escalate the fighting if Israel went ahead with a ground invasion of Gaza, which Israel did a week before Mr Nasrallah spoke.

The days leading up to his speech were tense in Lebanon. Supporters released a series of slick videos of Mr Nasrallah, which were meant to look ominous—although the aesthetic was not so much a declaration of war as a trailer for a new Marvel film. Some Lebanese stocked up on food and fuel; others packed bags in case they needed to rush to the airport. One man would decide whether Lebanon went to war, and it was a man with no formal position in government. Najib Mikati, the prime minister, admits the decision is out of his hands.

In the end, though, the speech suggested Hizbullah still wants to avoid all-out war. A tired-looking Mr Nasrallah spoke for almost 90 minutes. He aimed a lot of bombastic rhetoric at Israel and at America, its ally, but did not say anything that hinted a major escalation was coming. “This speech could have been an email,” joked one Lebanese viewer.

Instead Mr Nasrallah had three clear messages. The first was that he had had no prior knowledge of the massacre on October 7th by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, whose murder of more than 1,400 Israelis started the war. Mr Nasrallah called the attack “100% Palestinian” and said it was kept secret from Hizbullah, other Palestinian factions and their common patron Iran. Officials in America, Iran and Israel all share that assessment.

The second was to call for a ceasefire in Gaza—and urge other people to make it happen. He told Arab and Muslim states, for example, to impose an oil-and-gas embargo on Israel, echoing a call from Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, several days earlier. Such rhetoric was no doubt meant to embarrass Arab leaders for their inaction. It was also meant to pass the buck: Hizbullah is not responsible for ending the war.

The third was to pat himself on the back. Mr Nasrallah said that Israel was now taking fire from all sides—from Hamas in Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon and other Iranian-backed militias elsewhere—a situation he called unprecedented since Israel’s founding in 1948. Then he rattled off a list of Israeli army units that had been deployed to the Lebanese border. The implication was that Hizbullah’s limited fire on Israel had already made a significant contribution to the war effort by tying down part of the Israeli army.

He went on to say that “our efforts today will not be the end, and they will not be sufficient”. But he left his options open for what might trigger further escalation. Israel has already killed more than 9,000 Palestinians, displaced 1.5m more and encircled northern Gaza with ground troops without drawing a major response.

All in all, his speech suggests that for now he will preserve the status quo. He has several reasons to do that. One is America, which has sent two aircraft-carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean and explicitly warned Hizbullah not to escalate. Another is Iran, which views Hizbullah as a sort of doomsday device—a powerful weapon with which to deter Israel from striking Iran directly. It seems reluctant to risk that weapon to save Hamas.

The group is also under pressure at home. Lebanon is four years into a grinding economic crisis. Annual inflation has been above 100% for three years, and the currency has lost 98% of its value. A war would cause catastrophic damage that the country cannot afford to fix. Gulf states pledged more than $1bn for reconstruction after the war in 2006 but have tired of Lebanon’s chronic dysfunction and corruption and Hizbullah’s stranglehold over politics. They would not be inclined toward generosity this time.

A poll published by al-Akhbar, a newspaper sympathetic to Hizbullah, found that 68% of Lebanese did not support full-fledged war with Israel. Even among Lebanese Shias, the main base of Hizbullah’s support, opinions were mixed: 51% were in favour of war while 49% opposed it.

Hizbullah may hope to parlay its military restraint into political benefits. Lebanon has not had a president since October 2022, when Michel Aoun ended his six-year term. Parliament has failed a dozen times to choose a replacement. Hizbullah would like to install an ally, Suleiman Frangieh, a politician who also has close links to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator. The group may think that refraining from war will allow it to claim the presidency, and perhaps other posts as well, such as that of intelligence chief, which has been vacant since March.

There was a surreal split-screen while Mr Nasrallah spoke: Antony Blinken, the American secretary of state, was in Israel to meet with Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his war cabinet. He wanted to press Israel again on its post-war plans for Gaza, which remain vague. But his more immediate concern was the awful humanitarian conditions in the strip.

Joe Biden continues to reject talk of a ceasefire, but the American president has begun to push for brief lulls to allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. “I think we need a pause,” he said on November 1st. Some Israeli officers are willing to consider the idea—although such pauses would probably last for only a few hours at a time.

Pauses will not stop Hizbullah’s daily bombardment. Israel is unwilling to contemplate a ceasefire. The war will drag on, and this will not be the last time nervous viewers in Lebanon wait for Mr Nasrallah to announce their country’s fate. ■