Maayan Lubell & Maya Gerbeily
Reuters / July 29, 2024
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT – Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the Middle East into all-out war, two Israeli officials said on Monday, as Lebanon braced for retaliation after a rocket strike that killed 12 children and teens in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Two other Israeli officials said Israel was preparing for the possibility of a few days of fighting following Saturday’s rocket strike at a sports field in a Druze village.
All four officials, who included a senior defence official and a diplomatic source, spoke on condition of anonymity and gave no further information about Israel’s plans for retaliation.
“The estimation is that the response will not lead to an all-out war,” said the diplomatic source. “That would not be in our interest at this point.”
Israel and the United States have blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah for the strike. Hezbollah has denied any role.
The incident has added to concerns that months of cross-border hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group could spiral into a broader, more destructive war.
On Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to decide on the manner and timing of a response to the strike.
Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying the response would be “limited but significant”.
The report said options ranged from a limited attack on infrastructure, including bridges, power plants and ports, to hitting Hezbollah weapons depots or targeting Hezbollah commanders.
Prompted by the Gaza war, the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have been their worst since they went to war in 2006.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, has said its campaign of rocket and drone attacks on Israel has aimed to support the Palestinians, and indicated it will only cease fire when Israel’s offensive on Gaza stops.
The conflict at the Israel-Lebanon border has forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes on both sides.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday, emphasized the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict, the U.S. State Department said.
They discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to allow citizens on both sides of the border to return home, and ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held there.
Germany called on all parties to the Middle East conflict, in particular Iran, to prevent an escalation.
TWO HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERS KILLED
An Israeli drone strike killed two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon on Monday, security sources said. They were the first fatalities in Lebanon since Saturday’s incident. Three other people including an infant were wounded in that strike, an official in the Lebanese civil defence said.
The Israeli military said its air defences downed a drone which crossed from Lebanon into the Western Galilee area on Monday.
Flights at Beirut’s international airport have been cancelled or delayed as airlines responded to the possibility of an Israeli response.
Both Israel and Hezbollah have appeared at pains to avoid a full-scale war since they began trading blows in October.
Hezbollah has denied firing the rocket that killed the youngsters. It said on Saturday it had fired a missile against a military target on the Golan Heights, a border area Israel seized from Syria after the 1967 Middle East war and has since annexed in a move not generally recognized internationally.
Israeli strikes have killed some 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists, according to security and medical sources and a Reuters tally of death notifications issued by Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said after Saturday’s attack the death toll among civilians killed in Hezbollah attacks had risen to 23 since October, along with at least 17 soldiers.
Reporting by James Mackenzie and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Jana Choukeir in Dubai, Simon Lewis in Tokyo; Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Angus MacSwan and Peter Graff
