Behind scenes talks involving Iran halted greater Israel-Hezbollah conflict

Tehran has become a behind-the-scenes player in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, sources tell The National

A woman carries a portrait of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah past houses hit by Israeli air strikes, in Aita Al Shaab, a village on the border with Israel, on June 29. AP

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Weeks of back-channel negotiations involving Iran played a crucial role in preventing a wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, despite Sunday's scenes of rockets and drones over Israel and Lebanon, according to Arab and western political and diplomatic sources.

The sources in Cairo, Beirut and other regional capitals told The National that Arab mediators in the Gaza ceasefire talks have been increasing their exchanges with Tehran throughout the negotiations, keeping them updated on milestones.

The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh accelerated the exchanges and led to a proposal: minimal retaliation, at least for the time being, in return for more ceasefire influence.

“Egyptian and Qatari diplomacy played a big role,” said a political source in Beirut. “Political understandings outside the military scope were reached.

“There was no written agreement, that’s for sure, but there were agreed-upon actions that wouldn’t drive the whole region to hell. Hezbollah’s retaliation was calculated, aligning with these undeclared understandings.”

At the start of August, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged to make Israel “weep” after the late July killing of Hezbollah's senior military commander, Fouad Shukr. In response, Israel threatened to devastate Lebanon. Flights were cancelled, summer travellers rushed to leave, and the Middle East stood on the brink of another major war.

Less than four weeks later, the powerful militant faction retaliated with hundreds of drones and missiles aimed at Israeli targets. Israel claimed to have thwarted the Sunday attack, denying any significant damage.

Mr Nasrallah then calmly announced that the response was complete, asked the travellers to return, and assured them that the conflict would not escalate further, at least for the time being.

Mr Shukr and an Iranian military associate were killed in an Israeli strike on a densely populated neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburbs last month. Hours later, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran. The two killings marked an escalation with major repercussions for the Middle East in general and the Gaza ceasefire talks.

Israel, Iran and Hamas quickly affirmed that they are not seeking a wider war, but the vows of retaliation against Israel suggested a fiercer cycle of violence in parts of the region, particularly as efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza have remained unsuccessful.

Egypt, Qatar, and the US are the key mediators in the talks. They have enabled several rounds of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at ending the conflict, which has been spreading violence and instability across the region, from Yemen to Syria and beyond.

Vital role

This mediation work, which also included phone calls between Egyptian, Qatari, Jordanian, Lebanese, Turkish and Iranian officials, intensified after the recent assassinations.

“Since when do the Egyptians contact the Iranians directly regarding a matter related to the Palestinian cause and the Gaza Strip? It almost never happens. But it happened this time, despite the differences between the two countries,” said another political source in Beirut.

“The Egyptians wanted more time after the failure of the round of talks in Doha. They wanted to ensure that the region is quiet to ease the pressure on the talks, and the Iranians seem to have listened but in return for a bigger role in the Palestinian file.”

Sources close to the recent negotiations, which concluded in Cairo on Sunday without a breakthrough but could resume this week, have confirmed that Egyptian and Qatari mediators have accelerated their exchanges on ceasefire talks with Iran.

“Iran is a key behind-the-scenes player in the Gaza negotiations,” said a source. “It has become even more vital after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, because he was killed in Tehran.”

The source said the diplomatic efforts to broker a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage and detainee swap between Hamas and Israel have for months been part of the agenda in quiet and indirect contacts between Iran and the US, brokered by Oman.

Egypt has regularly spoken to the Iranians about the attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea by their proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, to stop or minimise their actions because they significantly affected Cairo's revenue from the Suez Canal, the waterway linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

Relations between Egypt and Iran were fraught for years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but they began to thaw in the past two to three years, although diplomatic representation between the two remains below ambassadorial level.

On Monday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman landed in Iran for consultations with Iranian officials – a day after the round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations in Cairo failed to bear fruit. Qatar has been a primary mediator on behalf of the Palestinian armed group, but Iran is not a formal party to the negotiations.

“Hezbollah's attack took into account the prevailing regional political climate. The negotiations taking place in Cairo are under the control of the Egyptians and the US, and Hezbollah is aware of this,” a source close to the group said.

The Lebanese militant group claimed to have attacked 11 Israeli military sites, including one near Tel Aviv, with more than 320 Katyusha rockets and drones, as a retaliation for the assassination of Mr Shukr. The attack was preceded by pre-emptive Israeli strikes and followed by hits on sites in Lebanon, which Hezbollah said were evacuated as a precaution.

The attack mirrored action by Iran when regional tensions escalated after Tehran launched an unprecedented drone and missile barrage against Israel in April, in a retaliatory response to an attack on its consulate in Damascus. Most of the drones and missiles were intercepted by Israel, the US and other allied forces stationed in the region.

“I don't think there was a back channel, but I think that the way Hezbollah planned the attack was a way that says to Israel, I'm not looking for a full-scale war at the moment,” said Amir Avivi, a former brigadier general in the Israeli army.

The former military official said many of the attacks that the Israeli army conducted “were to destroy launchers. Most of them are short range, not long range”.

“The way Hezbollah chose to attack Gilot base, north of Tel Aviv, was with UAVs. Now I think that Hezbollah knows if they send a UAV, and it's not a small one like the ones are using along the border, which are very small and difficult to detect – a UAV that needs to fly all the way to Tel Aviv is pretty big – they know that Israel will most likely see the UAV and foil the attack.”

Internal pressure

In Tehran, Afifeh Abedi, a researcher of Iran's foreign policy, said that Hezbollah must have co-ordinated its response with Iran.

“Lebanon's Hezbollah carried out the … operation in response to the assassination of Fouad Shukr, and probably had negotiations with Iran, but the time and location of the operation were determined independently and by the decision of the Lebanese resistance.”

This month, political sources in Beirut told The National that Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon have been indirectly offered “incentives” by western envoys to ensure that the retaliation to Israel’s assassination of Mr Shukr does not lead to a full-scale war. Among the incentives hinted at, albeit unofficially, was helping with political concession, including Lebanon's presidential impasse.

Lebanon has been without a president for almost two years after Michel Aoun's mandate expired in October 2022. The deeply divided current parliament has failed 12 times to elect a successor, with competing blocs backing two candidates. The pro-Hezbollah faction backs Marada leader Suleiman Frangieh, while their opponents support former minister Jihad Azour.

Israel and Hezbollah last fought a major conflict in 2006, a 34-day war that devastated parts of Beirut, killing about 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and about 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Analysts say both sides have vastly more firepower, with Hezbollah thought to have up to 150,000 rockets and missiles, 10 times its arsenal in 2006. Israel has expanded its air force, in part shown by attacks on Gaza, leaving most of the enclave with a population of 2.3 million in ruins.

Since 2006, Hezbollah, which is represented in both the parliament and government, has been at odds with many Lebanese politicians. These critics accuse the party of holding the country hostage to its own interests and undermining the army's authority.

The ongoing war with Israel, which began on October 8 in support of Hamas in Gaza, has forced about 100,000 Lebanese, mainly Shiite, to flee border towns for other regions, including Christian areas, in a major displacement that has increased internal pressure on Hezbollah.

In 2006, many people fled to Syria, but the continuing civil war in the neighbouring country and the dire economic situation in Lebanon have made it difficult to do so again.

On Sunday, the southern suburbs of Beirut were described by one local as completely empty after the overnight exchanges of fire. The densely populated area, known locally as Dahieh, is one of Hezbollah’s main support bases.

“Nasrallah has told his constituents to go back to the homes they fled by signalling that there isn’t going to be the war they feared,” a European diplomat involved in Middle East security told The National. “It is not that he does not want it; he cannot afford it.

“Nasrallah does not want to fight on the internal front and a war with Israel at the same time.”