As the Lebanese people recover from attacks on communications devices that killed and maimed scores of people, Israeli public opinion appears divided between elation over the attacks and nervousness over the potential repercussions.
In a region where nerves are on edge as Israel’s war on Gaza approaches its first anniversary, the escalation is the latest in a series of worrying developments.
In addition to killing at least 41,000 people in its war against the blockaded enclave, Israel has traded threats with Iran, bombed Yemen in retaliation for a Houthi drone strike and exchanged near-constant fire 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 across Lebanon and Syria.
As of this writing, 32 people have been killed, including two children, and thousands more injured, many maimed or permanently disfigured, as a result of the attacks.
The stakes are low in Israel, sources said, where excitement over the novelty and ingenuity of the attacks mixes freely with concern about their consequences.
Few believe that the threat posed by Hezbollah to Israel has been significantly reduced by these attacks.
Israel has deployed troops to the north of the country, apparently to allow the return of 60,000 residents evacuated following reciprocal attacks between Hezbollah and Israel.
“These were audacious attacks,” Mitchell Barak, a pollster and former aide to Israeli politicians, said from Jerusalem.
“If these attacks were carried out by Israel,” he said – referring to Israel’s tendency not to comment on such attacks – “they have reinforced our reputation as a ‘start-up nation’, innovative, bold and imaginative.”
Barak stressed that the unique nature of the attack and the level of infiltration required to carry it out had embarrassed Hezbollah.
“It was huge,” he said. “Bigger than anything we’ve seen in the war. Maybe even bigger than the preemptive strike on the Egyptian air force in 1967 (which started a war).”
“Nowhere is safe for them now. They’re going to want to respond to this, but they may find that a U.S.-brokered ceasefire is their best bet, because who knows what surprise might come next,” he said, hinting that more Israeli attacks could occur.
Prick the bears
Although media reports suggest that the precise timing of the attack may not have been chosen by Israel, the detonations nevertheless appear to have occurred at a fortuitous moment for it.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army redeployed its 98th Paratroopers Division from Gaza to the border with Lebanon, reinforcing the Northern Command, which until 2000 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 war with Hezbollah may be inevitable.
“It’s not clear what’s going to happen,” said Israeli analyst Nimrod Flashenberg.
“On the one hand, in public opinion, many people are still stunned by the cinematic nature of the attacks against Hezbollah, so there is no great desire for war.
“On the other hand, it’s Hezbollah. They’re the big bad guy. It’s hard to avoid the call for a strike, and to strike while they’re weak – especially among the right.”
The brink strategy
For many, including within Hezbollah itself, war seems almost inevitable.
Across the region, analysts are speaking out about the need for Hezbollah to respond to the strikes.
However, despite regular exchanges of fire with Israel throughout the war on Gaza, Hezbollah’s leaders in Lebanon and their allies in Iran have done their best to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
“Right now, the world’s most expensive game of chicken is taking place in the region,” political analyst Ori Goldberg said from Tel Aviv.
“Netanyahu would welcome a war, but he cannot let anyone think that he started it,” he said.
“This is always presented as some kind of inevitability, a situation for which Israeli leaders cannot be held responsible.
“They create their own self-fulfilling prophecy.
“There is no strategy, no vision, nothing. They work day by day and think that war will follow,” Goldberg added.
Division
So far, the explosions in Lebanon have not changed the discourse of the Israeli parliament, said Ofer Cassif, an Israeli lawmaker representing the left-wing Hadash coalition.
Not much can be expected from a parliament paralysed between the extreme right and its left-wing opponents.
“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 what they are, fascists – who want bloodshed, conquest and occupation.
“In front of them, there are different forces that opposed the massacre in Gaza, that demand its end and the release of the hostages. Between these two forces, the center disappears in a way,” he said.
“I don’t think these terrorist attacks will change anything,” he added, explaining that he used the term for the detonations in Lebanon as he would for any explosion in a public space.
“It’s very strange the way they view the attacks here. People talk about the attacks in terms of the Hezbollah command structure and the implications of this or that.
“No one in Israel seems to talk about the terrorism inflicted on the Lebanese people. Can you imagine that?” Goldberg said in Tel Aviv.
“Some will see it as too little, too late, and those on the left, like me, will continue our fight against the danger of a new war that will only bring more destruction, death and agony to the region,” Cassif said.
“We are at the starting point, polarized.”