In Israel, some want war with Hezbollah, others are worried | News about the Israel-Palestine conflict

As the people of Lebanon come to terms with the attacks on communications devices that killed and maimed scores of people, the Israeli public appears divided between euphoria over the attacks and nervousness over the possible repercussions.

In a region where nerves are frayed as Israel's year-long war on Gaza approaches, the escalation is the latest in a series of worrying developments.

In addition to killing at least 41,000 people in its war against a blockaded enclave, Israel has traded threats with Iran, bombed Yemen in retaliation for a Houthi drone attack and exchanged fire almost constantly with Hezbollah throughout the conflict.

Celebration

On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, thousands of communications devices belonging to Hezbollah exploded in what appeared to be a series of coordinated detonations in Lebanon and Syria.

At the time of writing, 32 people have been killed, including two children, and thousands have been injured, many of them permanently mutilated or disfigured, as a result of the attacks.

According to sources, few in Israel understand what is at stake, as euphoria over the novelty and ingenuity of the attacks freely mixes with concern over their consequences.

Few believe that the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel has been significantly reduced by the attacks.

Israel has been massing troops in the north, apparently in an attempt to allow the return of 60,000 residents evacuated there amid tit-for-tat attacks between Hezbollah and Israel.

“These were bold attacks,” said Mitchell Barak, a pollster and former adviser to senior Israeli political figures, speaking from Jerusalem.

“If they were carried out by Israel,” he said, referring to Israel’s tendency not to comment on such attacks, “they have reinforced our reputation as an ‘emerging nation,’ innovative, bold and imaginative.”

Barak stressed that both the unique nature of the attack and the level of infiltration required to carry it out had embarrassed Hezbollah.

“It was a very big thing,” he said. “Bigger than anything we have seen during the war. Possibly even bigger than the preemptive strike against the Egyptian air force in 1967 (which started a war).”

“Nowhere is safe for them now. They will want to respond to that, but they may find that a US-brokered ceasefire is their best bet, because who knows what surprise might be next,” he said, hinting that more Israeli attacks could come.

Poking Bears

Although media reports suggest that the precise timing of the attack may not have been chosen by Israel, the detonations appear to have occurred at a fortuitous time for it.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military redeployed its 98th Paratrooper Division from Gaza to the Lebanese border, augmenting the Northern Command that until 2000 had occupied parts of Lebanon.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi and others issued statements suggesting that a war with Hezbollah might be inevitable.

“It's not clear what's going to happen,” said Israeli analyst Nimrod Flashenberg.

“On the one hand, among the public, many people are still dizzy from the cinematic style of the attacks on Hezbollah, so there is no great desire for war.

“On the other hand, this is Hezbollah. This is the Big Evil. The call to attack and attack while they are weak – particularly among the right – is hard to avoid.”

Brinkmanship

For many, including many within Hezbollah itself, war seems almost inevitable.

Across the region, analysts speak of the need for Hezbollah to retaliate against the attacks.

However, despite maintaining a mostly constant exchange of fire with Israel throughout the course of the Gaza war, Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and their allies in Iran have made efforts to avoid an escalation of the conflict.

“The most expensive game of chicken in the world is currently being played in the region,” said political analyst Ori Goldberg from Tel Aviv.

“Netanyahu would welcome a war, but he cannot allow anyone to think that he started it,” he said.

“It is always presented as a kind of inevitability, a situation for which Israeli leaders cannot take responsibility.

“They are creating their own self-fulfilling prophecy.

“There's no strategy, no vision, nothing. They're just working on it day by day and assuming there's going to be a war,” Goldberg added.

Division

For now, the explosions in Lebanon have not changed anything in the discourse of the Israeli parliament, said Ofer Cassif, a member of parliament in Israel, representing the left-wing Hadash coalition.

Little can be expected from Parliament, which is paralysed between the extreme right and its adversaries on the left.

“Politics and society in Israel are polarized,” Cassif said, explaining that the attacks in Lebanon were unlikely to change many opinions.

“There are those on the right – let's call them by their name, fascists – who want a bloodbath, conquest and occupation.

“There are various forces in front of them that oppose the massacre in Gaza and demand an end to it and the release of the hostages. Between these two forces, the centre, so to speak, disappears,” he said.

“I don't think these terrorist attacks will change anything,” he added, explaining that he was using that term for the blasts in Lebanon as he would for any explosion in a public space.

“It's very strange how they view the attacks here. People talk about the attacks in terms of Hezbollah's command structure and the implications of this or that.

“In Israel, no one seems to talk about the terror that is being inflicted on the people of Lebanon. Can you imagine that?” Goldberg said in Tel Aviv.

“Some will see it as too little, too late, and those on the left, like myself, will continue our fight against the danger of another war that will only bring more destruction, death and agony to the region,” Cassif said.

“We are back where we started, polarized.”