As Israel moves to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah appears to be calculating that a war of attrition would play to its strengths as a guerrilla group, allowing it to reprise its tactics from a previous occupation and force an Israeli retreat.

The group is facing a broad backlash across the country for plunging Lebanon into another conflict by launching rockets at Israel on March 2, two days after Israel assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has complained that Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel were meant to avenge the Iranian leadership and had “nothing to do with” Lebanon.

But last week, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem described the group’s actions against Israel as a “defensive battle for Lebanon and its citizens.” He said the only alternative to “inevitable confrontation and resistance” is surrendering to Israel and giving up land.

The Hezbollah rocket attacks have drawn Israeli airstrikes and a broad incursion of ground troops into southern Lebanon. Israel is pushing for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. It has bombed bridges connecting the Hezbollah-dominated south with the rest of the country and insinuated that a long-term occupation might follow. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on March 24 that Israel will “control” territory in up to the Litani River—about 19 miles from the Israeli border. Troops would remain there until Hezbollah is disarmed, two former Israeli security officials told Foreign Policy.

Israel apparently feels that it has had the upper hand since 2024, when it assassinated Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and decimated the group’s capabilities. But Hezbollah appears to think that it can invoke nationalist sentiment and rally the Lebanese to the flag—in the process regaining some of its lost legitimacy.

That idea has been echoed in the analysis of several Lebanon watchers, including analysts at the Soufan Center. “The presence of Israeli troops on Lebanese soil may benefit Hezbollah, allowing it to frame the conflict as a resistance struggle against occupation — an environment in which the group historically excels,” the center assessed in an intelligence brief published in early March.

At Chatham House, analysts Nicole El Khawaja and Renad Mansour wrote recently: “A prolonged Israeli military presence will … create the conditions for Hezbollah to reconstitute its military capabilities and rebuild popular support.”

The Lebanese government and people are caught in the middle. Salam has displayed unprecedented courage in standing up to Hezbollah, even at risk to his personal safety. Hezbollah is widely believed to be behind the killing of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 as well as other intellectuals over the years who questioned the group’s tactics. Joseph Aoun, Lebanon’s president, has called for direct talks with Israel.

But these voices are being drowned out by the noise of rockets and missiles. Lebanese officials have reportedly asked the United States to help mediate an end to the Israeli assault, which some experts believe was greenlit by Washington. The response so far has been negative.

Hezbollah was formed in 1982 amid an Israeli invasion and fought a guerrilla campaign against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) along with other Shiite militias. The costs incurred by Israel forced the IDF to leave 18 years later. Stories of Hezbollah heroics, including ambushes against Israeli troops during the occupation years and in subsequent wars, stir Shiite pride in the country and give the group its standing as a resistance force—a standing that it exploits to keep its arms.

According to news reports, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps helped rebuild the group after the 2024 cease-fire with Israel and reorganized it into smaller cells, decentralizing its command and control to keep militants’ identities, locations, and missions secret and reduce the risk of Israeli assassinations.

That assistance raises suspicions among some Lebanese that Hezbollah is primarily serving the interests of Iran. Sami Nader, a Lebanese political analyst, told Foreign Policy that the group has managed to once again fool the Lebanese people, giving assurances that it was disarming in the south but then firing on Israel last month from that territory.

“The main question is Hezbollah’s disarmament,” Nader said.

Now, there are fears that calls by Israel’s far right to annex southern Lebanon will revive Hezbollah. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that Israel should “apply sovereignty” to southern Lebanon.

Maha Yahya, the director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, posted on X that an invasion will validate Hezbollah’s resistance narrative, drive the Lebanese “across sectarian denominations to rally around them,” and fuel the creation of dozens of mini Hezbollahs.

But Israeli analysts say that the current operation will push Hezbollah further away from the border, keeping Israel out of the range of its arsenal.

“Hezbollah’s anti-tank capabilities are being destroyed as we speak and stray guerrilla camps are being mopped out,” said Eran Lerman, a retired intelligence colonel and a former Israeli deputy national security advisor who now serves as the vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

“In parallel, some sort of a channel of communication has opened” between the two governments), he told Foreign Policy.

“Israel’s strategy is to hold the south and then find out whether the Lebanese are serious about peace and whether they can disarm Hezbollah,” Lerman added.

In the past month, some 1.1 million mostly Shiite Lebanese have been displaced from their homes in the south. A former Israeli security official indicated that Israel would not let them return until Hezbollah is disarmed of its heavy weapons. Katz has said all homes near the border with Israel would be destroyed along the “Rafah and Beit Hanoun” model, referring to areas that Israel flattened in Gaza after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

This is likely intended to anger Hezbollah’s displaced support base, create sectarian tensions as the Shiites seek shelter in Sunni- and Christian-dominated neighborhoods, and stoke friction between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state—in the hope that the Lebanese themselves will disarm the group.

“Even some in the Shiite [community] are blaming Hezbollah for this war,” Nader added, though the extent of such opposition is unclear.

Others argue that security is merely a fig leaf and that Israel’s real aim is to permanently occupy Lebanese territory in its quest for regional hegemony.

“Israel has done this over and over again. It creates a buffer zone in the name of security, and then another,” said Trita Parsi, a co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Look at the Golan [in Syria], it was meant to be a buffer zone for Israel, but then they occupied more parts of Syria, and now those are also a part of an extended buffer zone,” he said, referring to the Israeli presence in what was previously a demilitarized zone in Syria.

“As long as there is no [international] pushback, Israel will continue with its annexation policy,” he added.

Israel launched an offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack to punish the group and disarm it. Nearly two and a half years later, Hamas hasn’t disarmed, but Israel controls half of the battered enclave.

“We don’t intend to keep Gaza, nor the [newly acquired] territory in Syria,” Lerman said, except “perhaps just a few strategic points.”

He added, “And neither do we want to stay in Lebanon. I know some [far-right] Israelis say that, but that isn’t government policy.”

But there have been no talks thus far, and Lebanon’s overtures have largely been ignored. Israel and the United States have also turned a deaf ear to a French proposal under which Lebanon would take steps to recognize Israel—in exchange for an end to the war.

An agreement with the Lebanese state, if it goes beyond just a cease-fire, could be a historic opportunity for Israel. It would serve to isolate Hezbollah and potentially resolve other outstanding issues between the two countries. For the first time in decades, the Lebanese seem ready to discuss these ideas and challenge Hezbollah openly. By occupying southern Lebanon, Israel would be squandering the opportunity.