Maps Show Israel's Growing War with Iran's Allies

As talks toward a potential ceasefire in the Gaza Strip continue, expert data and analysis shared with Newsweek demonstrates the scope and intensity of ongoing clashes involving Israel and a coalition of Iran-aligned factions across the Middle East, especially across the border with Lebanon.

The latest figures, provided to Newsweek by Armed Conflict and Location Event Data (ACLED), show that Israeli forces have conducted 5,705 strikes against neighboring Lebanon and that the Lebanese Hezbollah movement has attacked or attempted to attack Israel 1,575 times between October 7, when the Palestinian Hamas movement conducted an unprecedented surprise attack against Israel, and the most recent reporting period of July 5.

"The most important event in the first week of July was the targeting of a Hezbollah top commander on 3 July," ACLED Middle East regional specialist Ameneh Mehvar told Newsweek, "which led Hezbollah to retaliate by firing a salvo of 200 rockets into Israel."

The killing of Hezbollah's reputed elite "Aziz" unit commander, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, also known as Abu Nimah, and the large-scale response marked the latest high-profile tit-for-tat exchange throughout a nine-month battle that threatens to further escalate amid signs of a potential pause in the Israel-Hamas war.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have declared their readiness to shift focus to the northern front, openly discussing waging an offensive in Lebanon, in the throes of a crisis that has consumed the region.

"Depending on the intensity of a potential Israeli offensive, especially if Israel aims for an all-out war that would pose an existential threat to Hezbollah rather than a limited war," Mehvar said, "we expect a dramatic rise in tensions across the Middle East that could include increased attacks by Iranian-backed groups against Israel, the United States and commercial targets, which would be costly for all sides involved."

With tensions already high, clashes between Israel and Hezbollah raged on in recent days.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced early Tuesday the interception of two explosive drones and "numerous projectiles" launched from southern Lebanon into northern Israel as well as Israeli strikes conducted against "two terrorists entering a Hezbollah military structure near the launch site." The IDF later in the day reported on 40 projectiles crossing from Lebanon into the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, internationally recognized as part of Syria, as well as IDF strikes against "a Hezbollah military structure" in Kfarkela.

Hezbollah claimed at least four new operations on Tuesday using shells, rockets, missiles and other munitions "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance" against IDF positions in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.

"We continue to resist until we leave this worldly life, even if we stay for decades, offering one sacrifice after another," Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem said during a speech Thursday, "and sacrifices give us more recruitment, work and strength, and we will not leave any field alone.

"We will get the best strength, the best equipment and the best practical capabilities, and we will continue to face Israel even if the world stands in our face and we are convinced that we will win, even after a while."

While the border battle continues, the nature of the fighting has shifted throughout the course of the past nine months.

"Generally, we have seen a gradual intensification in terms of both sides targeting locations deeper inside each other's territories," Mehvar said. "During the most serious phase of escalation from May to around mid-June, Hezbollah also intensified its attacks using new tactics and weapons, including missile-firing drones, advanced Falaq 2 rockets, Almas 4 anti-tank missiles, and air defense missiles targeting Israeli jets. Hezbollah also targeted cities such as Nahariya and Katzrin that had not been evacuated.

"Much of this recent escalation was likely related to Hezbollah anticipating that fighting in Gaza would wind down after the Rafah operation and that Israel could then redirect its effort to the north, therefore Hezbollah likely exhibited a show of strength aiming to strengthen deterrence."

Israeli and Iranian officials have repeatedly shared with Newsweek warnings to one another over the potential for a broader confrontation across the Israel-Lebanon border, one in which Hezbollah has told Newsweek it was prepared to fight if necessary.

U.S. officials have consistently expressed concern over the violence and instability. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday that President Joe Biden's administration has "been taking further diplomatic steps to try and reduce tensions along the border between Israel and Lebanon and try to set the table for a lasting ceasefire."

"But again," he added, "we think we are much more likely to have success in that endeavor if we are able to get a ceasefire in Gaza."

Days earlier, following a call between Biden and Netanyahu, a senior Biden administration official said Friday that "this is a war nobody wants" and that the two leaders had discussed efforts to de-escalate the violence on the Israel-Lebanon border and work toward a three-phase roadmap toward ending the war in Gaza.

"Now, if we do get a ceasefire in Gaza, as we saw in the November ceasefire," the official added, "I think that opens up a real opportunity for de-escalation and reaching an enduring arrangement."

The readout of the call released by Netanyahu's office asserted that the Israeli premier "reiterated the principles that Israel is committed to, especially its commitment to end the war only after all of its goals have been achieved."

Netanyahu has outlined his wartime objectives as the total destruction of Hamas as a military and political entity, the neutralization of any future threat from Gaza and the return of all remaining hostages held in the Palestinian territory. Israeli and Hamas officials have repeatedly accused one another of intentionally misrepresenting and sabotaging negotiations, which are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt and taking place in Cairo.

Meanwhile, Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian, an avowed reformist who won a surprise victory in last week's extraordinary election following the death of hard-liner principalist President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May, has affirmed his continued support for Hezbollah and other "Axis of Resistance" factions.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people in the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime," Pezeshkian said in a letter sent to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Monday. "Supporting the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ideals of the late Imam Khomeini, and the guidance of the Supreme Leader, and will continue with strength.

"I am confident that the resistance movements in the region will not allow this regime to continue its warmongering and criminal policies against the oppressed people of Palestine and other nations in the region."

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, other groups attached to the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" have claimed attacks against Israel from even further away.

Additional ACLED data shared with Newsweek displayed the broad scope of hostilities extending not only to Lebanon but Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Yemen between October 7 and June 28.

On Tuesday, a coalition of Iran-aligned militias active in Iraq and Syria known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq issued a statement and accompanying video purporting to show the launch of a drone toward the southern Israeli port city of Eilat "in continuation of our approach to resisting the occupation, in support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women and the elderly."

The operation came just one day after a previous strike on Eilat was jointly announced by the Iraqi coalition and Yemen's Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement. The group, which considers itself to be the legitimate political and military authority in Yemen, has simultaneously engaged in a widening series of missile and drone attacks against commercial vessels accused of defying a declared blockade on Israel.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces will persist in carrying out their joint military operations with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance in support of and solidarity with the Palestinian people until the aggression stops and the siege on the people in the Gaza Strip is lifted," Ansar Allah military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement Monday.

Israel has also conducted numerous operations far beyond its borders, much of them unclaimed, particularly in Syria, where military officials accused Israeli warplanes of targeting the coastal city of Baniyas on Tuesday, resulting in "some material losses."

In April, an Israeli airstrike killed senior Iranian military officials at a consular building in Damascus, prompting the first direct exchange of attacks between the archfoes whose rivalry has been sharply exacerbated since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. The killing of another senior Iranian adviser in Syria last month has prompted further calls for revenge within the Islamic Republic.

Newsweek has reached out to Hamas and Hezbollah for comment.

Contacted by Newsweek, an IDF spokesperson said that "the IDF is prepared to defend the State of Israel on all fronts, of diverse threats."

Update 07/10/2024, 12:47 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comments from a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces.