Explainer: Can Ghajar, a tiny Lebanese border village, lead to a new war between Israel and Hezbollah?

The last two weeks have seen a gradual increase in tension between Israel and the pro-Iran militia, Hezbollah, as both parties play a deadly game of chicken along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Israel revealed that Hezbollah has set up two tents in a disputed zone, in the Chebaa Farms and the Kafr Chouba hills, areas which Israel took after the 1967 war and that Lebanon says is its land.

Lebanon then announced that Israel had built a wall around the Lebanese part of Ghajar, a small town of about 3,000 Alawite Arabs on the Hasbani River, on the border between Lebanon and Syria's Golan Heights, which Israel has illegally occupied since the 1967 war.

After Israel withdrew from its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, Ghajar was split between Lebanon and Israel by the UN. Israel re-occupied the Lebanese part of the town during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

As part of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel is compelled to withdraw from the northern part of Ghajar, which has not happened. Rather, it began building a wall around the town which provoked angry rhetoric from across the Lebanese political spectrum.

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The Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdallah Bouhabib, instructed the Lebanese mission to the UN to file a complaint over what it has described as Israel's encroachment of Lebanese territory in Ghajar.

An anti-tank missile was also shot from Lebanese territory near Ghajar earlier this month, with no parties claiming responsibility.

Hezbollah militants were also wounded during an apparent operation by the border on Wednesday, the 17th anniversary of the 2006 war.

Why is Ghajar so important?

While Lebanon and historical Palestine have understood borders between them since the 1920s, Lebanon has no settled land border with Israel after its violent founding in 1948 during the Nakba and takeover of much of the land of Palestine.  

Instead, Lebanon and Israel have "The Blue Line," a line drawn by UN surveyors in 2000 to determine whether or not Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon after its decades-long occupation.

Several spots along the blue line remain contested, such as the Shebaa Farms and parts of Ghajar.

The US has reportedly proposed to use the crisis evolving at Lebanon's southern border to finally settle the land border between the two countries, with US mediator Amos Hochstein landing in Tel Aviv last week.

On Tuesday, Lebanon's caretaker, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, said that Lebanon would be willing to demarcate the country's southern border.

However, Hezbollah ardently objected to any negotiations on the land border with Israel in a Wednesday night speech denouncing Israeli attempts to absorb Ghajar.

"Hezbollah will never allow the Lebanese state to discuss any idea of opening negotiations of border demarcations because this is very dangerous for their redlines," Karim el-Mufti, a senior lecturer in global affairs at Sciences Po, told The New Arab.

Hezbollah, borne out of a resistance group to the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, has since styled itself as the only force in Lebanon capable of deterring another Israeli incursion.

The group has seized upon the disputed areas of the blue line, such as Ghajar, as further rationale for its status as a resistance group allowed to carry weapons outside of the Lebanese state framework.

"The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, instead of removing Hezbollah's narrative, it re-enforced it. Now, guess what, in order for us to deter any further aggression, we need someone to defend the south," el-Mufti explained.

Yet, many across the Lebanese political spectrum want the Lebanese state to handle the evolving crisis over Ghajar rather than Hezbollah.

"Israel needs to retreat to where they were, respecting the country's borders. They have no right to occupy lands whenever they feel like it," Najat Aoun, an independent Lebanese MP who visited Ghajar last week, told TNA.

While Aoun condemned the Israeli occupation of the Lebanese part of Ghajar, she emphasised that the state alone should solve the issue.

"We want a sovereign country, and we want a country able to protect its borders … There should be no militia that is taking any armed force role in the south," Aoun said.

Will the situation escalate?

There have been relatively moderate levels of violence at the southern border, with the Lebanese side firing an anti-tank missile and Israel shelling a Lebanese border village on 6 July.

Nevertheless, the rhetoric from Hezbollah and Israel seems to minimise the possibility of a conflict, el-Mufti said.

"[Hezbollah chief] Nasrallah's speech was not warmongering. He's not calling out for blood even though there are injuries in his ranks. In other contexts, they would have responded differently," he added.

According to Lebanese FM Bouhabib, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) conveyed an Israeli request that Hezbollah evacuate its remaining tent on the border.

For its part, the Lebanese FM said it asked UNIFIL to relay his request that Israel withdraw from Ghajar.

Despite these so-far contained instances of violence along the border, it seems both parties are keen not to escalate into a full-blown war.

Israel and Lebanon's use of the UN as a mediating force signals a possible diplomatic off-ramp for the escalating tensions in the south of Lebanon.

In October, Lebanon and Israel indirectly agreed on a deal to demarcate their maritime borders, ending a long-running dispute over potential gas-rich offshore economic zones. Hezbollah at the time implicitly gave its blessings to the agreement, albeit stressed it was not involved in the US-sponsored deal.