But Mr. Nasrallah has not ordered his own powerful militia into action. No missiles have been fired at Israel from southern Lebanon. And for all the anxious talk in recent days about the possible opening of a second front on the Lebanese border, it is unlikely that Hezbollah will attack unless Hamas’s situation becomes desperate, analysts say.
There are at least two reasons for this. First, Hezbollah still believes that its ally Hamas will triumph. Second, it cannot risk drawing Lebanon into another devastating conflict like the one in 2006. Hezbollah is still politically vulnerable at home.
“They don’t want to bring down the wrath of the Israeli Air Force,” said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “The community and the country are not up for another war just two years after the last one.”
After the 2006 war, Mr. Nasrallah claimed victory over Israel but also delivered a kind of apology to the Lebanese, saying he would not have ordered the cross-border raid that precipitated the 2006 conflict if he had known that Israel would respond with a 34-day juggernaut, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and parts of the country in ruins.
Since then, Hezbollah has gained important new powers in Lebanese government, and its alliance is widely expected to win a majority in parliamentary elections this year, a major step. Starting a conflict could risk all that, angering the Lebanese people and “reviving the whole debate about Hezbollah’s weapons,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a policy analyst and author who has written about Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has faced pressure to disarm since the 2000 Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
For the moment, the point is largely moot. Hezbollah’s leaders, who are famously secretive, appear to be sanguine about the outcome in Gaza.
“We are not pessimistic about the future of the fighting,” said Ali Fayyad, a former Hezbollah official and the director of a research institute here affiliated with Hezbollah. “We consider that the resistance is strong enough, and we think Israelis are making the same mistake they made in the July 2006 war.”
Hezbollah is well aware of Hamas’s abilities, having worked with Iran to train and prepare the Gaza-based movement for this conflict, Mr. Salem and other analysts say.
The idea was to arm Hamas so that it could survive in battle long enough to force Israel and Arab states to negotiate terms with it, a process that would ultimately bolster its power and credibility — along with those of its allies Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
No second front is needed to fulfill those goals.
So far, Hezbollah’s role has been purely rhetorical. Mr. Nasrallah has deplored Israel’s military assault and, in an unprecedented step, lashed out at Egypt for not opening its border with Gaza to allow military and humanitarian supplies through. Analysts say he hopes to create a popular movement in Egypt and elsewhere that would force the Egyptian government to capitulate, easing pressure on Hamas.
A few Arab columnists have begun mocking Mr. Nasrallah for not backing up his words with action. State-controlled Egyptian newspapers have engaged in a war of words with Hezbollah, and in a column on Friday, Elias Harfoush of the Saudi-owned newspaper Hayat ridiculed Hezbollah for its mix of “passionate speeches” and “realism” with regard to action.
These broadsides come from Hezbollah’s enemies, and the group is not paying any real political price in Lebanon for failing to launch an attack. Still, Hezbollah does face risks.
“What if some local Hezbollah-allied group in the south just decides to launch a couple of rockets at Israel?” said Timur Goksel, who spent more than two decades as chief adviser to the United Nations peacekeeping force in South Lebanon and now teaches at the American University of Beirut. “That could change the whole dynamic.”
Although Hezbollah is noted for its discipline, there are different ideological currents within the organization, and some members may be calling for action, Mr. Goksel said. Those voices would surely grow louder if Hamas appeared to be on the verge of being crushed or eliminated.
“If Hamas is really losing, it becomes crucial for Hezbollah to intervene,” said Ms. Saad-Ghorayeb, the author. “This isn’t just a war with Hamas; it’s a war against the whole resistance front,” meaning Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
For the moment, Hezbollah seems unwilling even to consider that possibility. But at least one figure who is close to Hezbollah’s leadership agreed that the pressure for intervention would grow if Hamas seemed close to defeat. Ibrahim al-Amine, the chairman of the Beirut-based newspaper Al Akhbar, is said to be a personal friend of Mr. Nasrallah’s. “Hezbollah cannot allow Hamas to lose this war,” Mr. Amine said.
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