Cross-border missile exchanges between Israel and Lebanon intensified this week, with Hezbollah launching missiles at northern Israel and Israel responding with its own missile barrage on southern Lebanon, both resulting in civilian deaths.
As we have mentioned previously, Hezbollah has been attempting to avoid anything that would lead to all-out conflict with Israel. For the same reason, Kaitab Hezbollah in Iraq suspended strikes against U.S. targets after two American soldiers were killed in Jordan. While it is unclear how much of that was pressure from Tehran or the Iraqi Hezbollah group’s own calculated decision, remains unclear. But it tells us something about what is happening right now on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Hezbollah continues to refrain from becoming a full partner with Hamas in this conflict, and while it continues to attack Israeli defense force positions just on the other side of the border, they are potshots, generally, compared to Israel’s response to Hezbollah in the reverse direction. The question now is whether the ten civilians Israel killed this week in southern Lebanon will push the group over the edge.
Cross-border strikes, which have been daily, have intensified this week in terms of scope and scale. On Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that these attacks would result in a “million evacuees” from northern Israel, accusing Israel of purposefully widening the war, but what Israel…
Cross-border missile exchanges between Israel and Lebanon intensified this week, with Hezbollah launching missiles at northern Israel and Israel responding with its own missile barrage on southern Lebanon, both resulting in civilian deaths.
As we have mentioned previously, Hezbollah has been attempting to avoid anything that would lead to all-out conflict with Israel. For the same reason, Kaitab Hezbollah in Iraq suspended strikes against U.S. targets after two American soldiers were killed in Jordan. While it is unclear how much of that was pressure from Tehran or the Iraqi Hezbollah group’s own calculated decision, remains unclear. But it tells us something about what is happening right now on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Hezbollah continues to refrain from becoming a full partner with Hamas in this conflict, and while it continues to attack Israeli defense force positions just on the other side of the border, they are potshots, generally, compared to Israel’s response to Hezbollah in the reverse direction. The question now is whether the ten civilians Israel killed this week in southern Lebanon will push the group over the edge.
Cross-border strikes, which have been daily, have intensified this week in terms of scope and scale. On Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that these attacks would result in a “million evacuees” from northern Israel, accusing Israel of purposefully widening the war, but what Israel wants is for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighting force from the border to allow for the return of displaced Israelis in northern Israel. We now expect Hezbollah to respond in a way that represents a gradual, incremental intensification of its response to Israel, which in turn will be Israel’s response, keeping in mind that Nasrallah’s speeches are necessarily much more fiery than the reality.
Lebanon does not want a war, nor can it afford one. It would be disastrous. Even Hezbollah has demonstrated that it wants to avoid all-out conflict with Israel, but as Israel fires deeper into Lebanon and Hezbollah launches retaliatory missile barrages at IDF positions in northern Israel, a weak Lebanese government has meant that Hezbollah and its military wing are in the spotlight and Lebanon’s political vacuum could implode under the pressure of the Gaza conflict.
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