It Looked Like Israel And Hezbollah Had Gone To War, But Then They Pulled Back. Here's What To Know
Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire over the weekend that briefly raised fears of an all-out war.
But their decades-long conflict is far from over, regional tensions linked to the war in Gaza are still high, and it’s probably only a matter of time before another escalation.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not rule out another retaliatory strike over the killing of a top commander in an Israeli airstrike last month. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “this is not the end of the story.”
The near-daily strikes and counterstrikes along the border, which began shortly after the outbreak of the Gaza war, resumed Monday. Israel struck a Lebanese border village and a car, and Hezbollah said it had targeted military surveillance equipment in northern Israel with an exploding drone.
Here’s a look at what happened over the weekend:
Israel said around 100 warplanes launched airstrikes targeting thousands of rocket launchers across southern Lebanon to thwart an imminent Hezbollah attack. Hezbollah said it launched hundreds of rockets and drones aimed at military bases and missile defense positions in northern Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The Israeli strikes killed three militants in Lebanon, and Israel’s military said a soldier was killed by either an interceptor of incoming fire or shrapnel from one. It was all over by mid-morning Sunday, and the rest of the day and night passed without incident.
Hezbollah called the attack an initial response to the targeted killing of one of its top commanders, Fouad Shukur, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last month. Nasrallah said Hezbollah would “reserve the right to respond at a later time” if the results of Sunday’s