Is the IsraelHezbollah fighting about to spiral?
Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel took a dangerous turn this week with Israeli strikes deep into Lebanese territory, further stoking fears of all-out war between the arch-foes.
Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since war erupted between Israel and the Gaza-based group on October 7.
Despite the bellicose rhetoric on both sides, neither seems to want a war that could set the whole region ablaze.
What’s happening?
From the day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted, Hezbollah began launching cross-border attacks which, it says, are in support of Palestinians and Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has, in turn, been striking targets in Lebanon, with Hezbollah and Hamas commanders and officials also in its crosshairs.
The exchanges have killed at least 284 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah combatants, but also others including Palestinian fighters and 44 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, Israel said.
On Monday, Israeli strikes targeted Hezbollah bastion Baalbek in east Lebanon, some 100km from the Israeli border, the deepest such raid since the hostilities began.
Two Hezbollah fighters were killed, and the Iranbacked group retaliated with rocket fire, but not at a comparable depth inside Israel.
Military analyst Hisham Jaber that while Israeli strikes were targeting deeper into Lebanon, Hezbollah was still restricting its activities “to within around 10 kilometres” across the frontier. “The risk of wide-scale conflict can’t be ruled out, but it is unlikely,” he said.
But it would only take a mistake on either side for the situation to degenerate.