Following the weekend exchange of fire between Israel and Hizbullah – the largest since 2006 – fears were again raised of a full-scale war between the two sides. However, the red lines which might trigger this appear to be understood and, for now at least, accepted by both.
Israel’s wave of air strikes in southern Lebanon, as Hizbullah fired more than 300 rockets at Israel in retaliation for last month’s assassination of senior commander Fuad Shukr, while serious, do not point to an immediate further escalation. Instead they appeared calibrated to draw back from the brink of an all-out war.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah’s leader, unusually sought to draw a line under the exchange on Sunday evening, saying the attack was over, though still leaving some room for manoeuvre. Both sides claimed significant achievements, with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu saying the military eliminated thousands of rockets aimed at northern Israel.
No-one, not the Israelis, Hizbullah nor the Iranians wants or can afford all-out war, although as the Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt end again inconclusively, it remains a real danger, sustained by bellicose rhetoric on all sides. The low-level but deadly exchange of missiles on Lebanon’s border continues, while there is still more unfinished business – Iran’s own promised retaliation for the killing on its soil of Hamas’s Ismail Hanniyeh. Here, the effectiveness of Israel’s air defences may again blunt another missile onslaught.
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The weekend exchanges were significant for their targeting at military sites with both sides careful to minimise civilian casualties, a notable contrast with the war in Gaza. While hawks in Israel’s cabinet may want to send troops into southern Lebanon, there is an awareness that Hizbullah’s missile stocks have barely been dented – Tel Aviv and other cities are still within easy reach. Western intelligence and Israeli analysts predict Hizbullah would be able to launch up to 3,000 missiles a day for 10 days, 10 times more than it claims to have fired on Saturday.
This prodding at the enemy, continually testing the limits of their patience, is a dangerous game. It could be derailed by accident, by the provocative actions of an unreliable extremist ally or by a simple miscalculation of the fluid internal political dynamics of the other side.
The desperate stop-go striving for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages is crucial to calming all the regional sub-conflicts. Though talks in Cairo appear to have stalled again, they will continue at lower levels in the coming days to try to bridge the remaining gaps. However, Israel and Hamas appear to remain far apart on critical issues. In the meantime, the grim death toll in Gaza, now exceeding 40,400, continues to rise and the wider region remains on edge.