The border zone between Lebanon and Israel is a battlefield “waiting to happen” but Iran holds the key to a wider regional war in the Middle East, an expert has said.
Military analyst Professor Michael Clarke said Hezbollah could press a button and spark a war in the north of Israel if the group believed it could gain from it, but at the moment the Lebanese militia group doesn’t think it would.
He said Hezbollah may want to assert the fact this war could get “much worse” if they became involved, but they will only do so if Iran tells them to or allows them to.
Professor Clarke’s analysis came after the IDF launched its deepest retaliatory airstrikes on Lebanon yet following deadly strikes in the north of Israel.
The rocket attack in northern Israel killed a female soldier, according to the Israeli military, and wounded eight people when a projectiles hit a military base in the town of Safed on Wednesday (February 14). Staff Sgt Omer Sarah Benjo was killed by the attack from Lebanon, according to the Israelia army.
Israel’s airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed four, including a Syrian woman and her two Lebanese children. At least nine were wounded, according to Lebanese security officials and local media.
Since Hamas gunmen attacked sourthern Israel on October 7, Hezbollah and the IDF have duelled over the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Hezbollah is said by Israel to have an arsenal with some 150,000 rockets, with Iran said to have paid for much of it but as a last resort.
The head of Hezbollah’s executive council has said the latest strike from Israel “cannot pass without a response”, but its response is unlikely to escalate with all out war between the group and IDF likely to lose Hezbollah support among the Lebanese people.
An Israeli government spokesperson said in response to the latest rocket exchange that Israel will respond “forcefully” if provoked, but Tel Aviv is not interested in a war on two fronts.
Hezbollah’s latest attacks come after Iran’s foreign minister visited Lebanon and soon after the group’s leader said Hezbollah will continue to target Israel until the war in Gaza ends.
Israeli officials and right-wing politicians in the country ramped up their rhetoric in response to Hezbollah’s latest attacks, urging Tel Aviv to launch an offensive against Israel’s northern neighbour.
Israel’s hard-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, labelled the attack a declaration of war and urged the Israeli government to respond. He wrote on X: “This is not a trickle (of rockets), it’s a war.”
Some 60,000 people have fled the border on both sides, with a third of Israel’s forces stationed in the north, according to Professor Clarke.
Shelling across the border has killed 200 in Lebanon, including some 170 Hezbollah militants.
In Israel, 19 people have been killed by rocket attacks from Lebanon, including 10 civilians.
More than 180 Israelis have been wounded, including a woman and her son who were critically wounded on Tuesday (February 13) in a rocket attack in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona.
