In spite of negotiations designed to defuse hostilities and avert an anticipated invasion on Israel by Hezbollah, fighting between these two groups has escalated over the last weekend. What was called an attack on a Hezbollah weapons store in south Lebanon’s Nabatieh according to Israel, killed ten Syrian laborers and their families. It was actually one of the worst Israeli attacks on people since war started in October. Hezbollah retaliated by firing an attack of 55 missiles toward the northern Israeli village of Ayelet HaShahar.
While on surveillance in the border town of Yarin, Lebanon, an explosion caused minor injuries to three Unifil troops as well. According to a source inside Unifil, they were still looking into the situation but thought the troops were hurt by an Israeli airstrike that happened close.
After ten months of warfare between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when the organization launched rockets at Israel “in solidarity” with Hamas’s October 7 strike, the prospect of a full-scale war now looms greater than ever .In response to Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah military chief of staff Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Hezbollah has pledged to exact retribution. Israel has a history of conducting deliberate killings, however it has not acknowledged being responsible for Haniyeh’s death.
For the very first time, Hezbollah publicly unveiled its well-known tunnel network on Friday by releasing a video showing trucks loaded with missiles traversing what seems to be a city-sized network of tunnels.
It declared that the rival country [Israel] seeks an invasion and is always attempting to intimidate us, so they are equipped for all options. The group’s rocket capabilities, they continued, were “very large,” and the footage from Friday was only “a drop in the ocean of what Hezbollah possesses.”
Ever since the twin killings in Tehran and Beirut, the US and other major nations have been involved in intense diplomatic maneuvers. This week, US envoy Amos Hochstein traveled to Tel Aviv and Beirut, while last week, an urgent round of negotiations to establish a truce in Gaza took place in Doha.
The media organization has also been uncommonly reserved in public. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, has stated that waiting for an assault is “part of the punishment” meted out to Israel. It is consistent with the group’s previous “strategic ambiguity” philosophy and gives minimal information about its military might and deterrent goals.
The US and the UK are unable to communicate with the Hezbollah leaders; instead, communications must go via the Amal political party, which is an ally of Hezbollah, or through middlemen in the Lebanese government. Western attempts to assess the Lebanese group’s mentality have been made more difficult by the diplomatic game of telephones.
In Lebanon, Hochstein’s reputation as the diplomat in charge of mediating a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah has also suffered. He was accused by Hezbollah-affiliated media of “deceiving” Lebanese authorities before to Shukr’s killing in Beirut by giving them false assurances.
