BEIRUT, Lebanon—On Oct. 8, 2023, as Israel was reeling from the deadly Hamas attacks of the previous day, Hezbollah launched mortar rounds against Israeli outposts dotting the skyline of the mountainous Shebaa Farms area alongside Lebanon’s southeastern border. A Hezbollah statement declared that the attack was a gesture of support for the group’s Palestinian ally Hamas. It was the opening salvo in what was to become a sustained effort to try and alleviate the pressure on Hamas as Israel prosecuted its war in Gaza.
A year later, however, Hezbollah has become embroiled in a debilitating war that has seen Israel decapitate its top political and military leadership, while leaving more than 2,000 Lebanese dead and many villages along the border so heavily damaged they have become uninhabitable.
Regardless of how the current war ends, Hezbollah’s fateful decision—alongside that of the group’s backer, Iran—to open what it called a “support front” for Hamas in October 2023 will go down as the greatest strategic blunder the organization has made in its 42 years of existence.