After a week of threats, the Hezbollah terror group came through on its vows of revenge, firing several anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli military position along the Lebanese border, hitting an armored jeep that had minutes before been full of soldiers.
The Israeli military responded with artillery shelling and airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. But there too, no casualties were reported.
With this attack, Hezbollah can claim a victory over the Jewish state, having effectively bypassed Israeli defenses and struck an IDF base and an armored vehicle from across the border.
The media-savvy terror group can even hint through its affiliated news outlets that Israel is covering up casualties and losses — helped in part by an Israeli psychological warfare operation — thus making its bombardment seem more successful.
According to military sources, the vehicle that was hit in the strike had minutes earlier been full of soldiers.
Whether the timing of Hezbollah’s attack was a case of dumb luck for both sides, or if the terror group deliberately avoided causing large numbers of Israeli losses to avoid such a conflict — this is not immediately known.
But had the attack caused many casualties, it would have demand a forceful response by Israel and likely another retaliation by Hezbollah until all-out war broke out.
But whatever the cause, this bloodless exchange, which lasted just a few hours, could bring to a close the current period of heightened tensions and mark a return to the quieter, though no less violent, status quo in which Hezbollah seeks to acquire precision-guided missiles and other advanced weaponry and Israel’s security services fight to prevent this from happening.
But as of Sunday night, it was not clear if the afternoon’s attack will suffice in Hezbollah’s search for revenge, or if another border exchange is in the offing.
The current tensions can be traced back to two main events: an airstrike by the IDF last Saturday night against an Iranian-controlled base in Syria from which Iranian operatives, including two Hezbollah members, planned to bomb targets in northern Israel with armed drones; and a drone attack in Beirut last Sunday morning that has been attributed to Israel that reportedly targeted key components of a joint Hezbollah-Iranian project to manufacture precision-guided missiles in Lebanon.
Throughout the past week, both incidents — the airstrike and drone attack — have been cited by Hezbollah officials as unacceptable forms of Israeli aggression, demanding retaliation.
However, in its official statement on Sunday’s missile barrage, the terror group referred only to the Hezbollah “martyrs” killed in Israel’s airstrike in Syria, leaving open the possibility that a reprisal attack for the Beirut drone blast was yet to come.
Indeed on Sunday evening, the Israeli military said that while it considers the “tactical event” with Hezbollah to be over, the larger strategic threat posed by the terror group remains firmly in place.
While this current period of heightened tensions may come to an end with Sunday’s attack, the underlying issues have not been resolved, most importantly Hezbollah’s efforts to acquire precision-guided missiles.
According to the IDF, since 2013 the terror group’s patron Iran has been working to provide these advanced munitions to Hezbollah.
Yadlin compared Hezbollah’s efforts to produce these precision-guided missiles to Iran’s desire to acquire a nuclear weapon. In both cases, Israel has demonstrated that it will take military action in order to prevent such a situation.
The former intelligence chief said he believes that sooner or later the IDF will have to stage a major operation to prevent Hezbollah from improving its missiles.
Last week, in a bid to force the Lebanese government and international community to take action against this joint Hezbollah-Iranian project, the IDF declassified intelligence about the Iranian and Hezbollah officials running it.
Hezbollah and Iran, however, have in no way indicated that they plan to abandon the venture, meaning that while this round of violence may come to an end, the next is only a matter of time.
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