WORLD_ Israel, Hizbollah signal their flare-up is over

TheNational

Israel, Hizbollah signal their flare-up is over

January 29, 2015 Updated: January 29, 2015 11:03 PM

JERUSALEM, BEIRUT // Israel and Hizbollah signalled on Thursday that their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese guerrillas killed two Israeli troops in retaliation for a deadly airstrike in Syria last week.

Israel said it had received a message from Unifil, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, that Hizbollah was not interested in further escalation.

In Beirut, a Lebanese source said Israel informed Hizbollah via Unifil “that it will make do with what happened yesterday and it does not want the battle to expand”.

Asked on Israel’s Army Radio whether Hizbollah had sought to de-escalate, the Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon said: “There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via Unifil and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon.”

A salvo of Hizbollah guided missiles killed an Israeli infantry major and a conscript soldier as they rode in unmarked civilian vehicles along the Lebanese border on Wednesday. Israel then launched an artillery and air barrage, and a Spanish peacekeeper was killed. Spain’s ambassador to the UN blamed the Israeli fire for his death.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday blamed Iran, which backs Hizbollah, for the flare-up.

“It is Iran that is responsible for yesterday’s attack against us from Lebanon,” Mr Netanyahu said.

“This is the same Iran that is now trying to achieve an agreement, via the major powers, that would leave it with the ability to develop nuclear weapons, and we strongly oppose this agreement,” he said, referring to the negotiations over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

The exchange of fire on Wednesday was the most serious clash on the border since 2006, when Hizbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. On Thursday, the frontier was quiet, though Lebanese media reported overflights by Israeli air force drones.

Both sides appear to share an interest in avoiding further escalation.

Hizbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, is busy supporting Damascus, another Iranian ally, in Syria’s civil war, and the level of destruction in Lebanon during the 2006 conflict could also be weighing on its calculations.

Israel is gearing up for a March 17 general election and gauging the costs of its offensive on the Gaza Strip last year against Palestinian militant groups, whose rocket arsenal is dwarfed by Hizbollah’s weapons cache.

In a separate interview, Mr Yaalon described Israeli forces on the Lebanese border as being vigilant, but not on a war footing.

“I can’t say whether the events are behind us,” he told Israel Radio. “Until the area completely calms down, the Israel Defense Forces will remain prepared and ready.”

Mr Yaalon termed Wednesday’s Hizbollah attack “revenge” for the Israeli airstrike on January 18 in southern Syria that killed several Hizbollah members, including a senior operative, along with an Iranian general.

Israel has not formally acknowledged carrying out the airstrike, but Mr Yaalon said it had set back Hizbollah and Iranian efforts to “open a new front” against the Jewish state from the Syrian Golan Heights.

After the airstrike, Israeli army installations and civilian communities in the north hunkered down in anticipation of Hizbollah reprisals. Sightings of suspicious movement on the Lebanese side of the border triggered several security alerts.

Lt Col Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said Hizbollah fired Kornet anti-tank missiles in Wednesday’s attack from four to five kilometres away – an extreme range for the weapon that apparently lent the launchers the element of surprise.

Lt Col Lerner linked Hizbollah’s tactical skill to its Syria intervention: “This should not come as a great surprise given that they have gained so much live combat experience over the past two years.”

Unifil officials did not immediately confirm or deny passing messages between Israel and Hizbollah. The force says it has no contacts with Hizbollah but is in touch with the Lebanese government, of which Hizbollah is a part.

During Wednesday’s flare-up, Israeli troops launched a search for suspected tunnels that Hizbollah might use to send in guerrillas for a cross-border attack – a tactic employed by Palestinian Hamas fighters during the 2014 Gaza war.

“No tunnels have been found so far,” Mr Yaalon told Army Radio.

* Reuters

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