Deterrence is a concept that says when one side is afraid of the consequences of performing some action against another, they will regain from doing it. It is often a two way street. Today, Israel seems deterred from engaging in a ground war against Hezbollah. It may be that the expected cost is not viewed as worth the expected gain. On the other side, Hezbollah is not afraid to launch daily rocket attacks against Israel. But those attacks are actually limited in terms of both geography and types of targets (although it is possible that attacks have been made against higher value targets and Israeli defenses thwarted them).
Israel’s policy of targeted assassination of terrorist leaders has resulted in threats by Hezbollah of expanding their target list. Hezbollah has an (Iranian provided) arsenal of over 10000 long range missiles that have not been used (perhaps out of fear of the Israeli response). The Houthis in Yemen weren’t deterred from using their Iranian long range missiles. The missiles failed to cause significant damage, but the Israeli reply did. The Yemeni port of Hodeida was left in flaming ruin.
Israeli hesitation to go in on the ground may be due to other factors. One of them is a feeling that the IDF cannot destroy Hezbollah. Israeli forces have been in Lebanon before. On those occasions the IDF had to withdraw and Hezbollah remained bloodied, but essentially intact. Hezbollah was also strong enough to totally ignore the requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
Hezbollah is still simply an Islamic Terrorist Organization, but one that the official Lebanese government is unable to control.
Wetherhorn 