US and international officials are calling on both Israel and Hezbollah to exercise restraint and avoid embarking on a devastating regional war, after a rocket attack by the Iran-backed group killed a dozen young men on a football field in the north of Israel.
The Biden administration supported Israel’s assessment that the rocket that hit northern Israel was launched by Hezbollah, even when the terrorist group and Lebanese authorities denied responsibility.
And the White House said Monday that Israel has the right to defend itself, while also calling on diplomacy to calm tensions on both sides.
“Israel appears prepared to conduct a very punitive attack against Hezbollah,” said Brian Katulis, senior U.S. foreign policy researcher at the Middle East Institute.
“I think what the White House can expect in its public messaging and what it is doing privately is similar to the Goldilocks response… not too hard to cause a widespread regional war, not too soft to have no impact. But something that is somewhere in between,” he continued.
But Biden administration officials are confident that such an attack on Hezbollah would not trigger a broader war.
“We’ve all heard about this all-out war scenario at various points over the last 10 months,” said John Kirby, communications adviser for the White House National Security Council.
“These predictions were exaggerated then, frankly, we think they are exaggerated now. See, Israel has every right to respond. But no one wants a wider war and I am confident that we will be able to avoid such an outcome.”
The US said it is in contact with Israeli and Lebanese officials to calm tensions. Hezbollah’s military and political wing is blacklisted by the US as a terrorist organization, but the US maintains ties with Beirut and is a major supporter of the Lebanese military.
While Hezbollah began attacking Israel following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group would respect a ceasefire if reached between Israel and Hamas.
“One of the reasons we continue to work so hard for a ceasefire in Gaza is not just for Gaza, but also so that we can actually… bring calm, lasting calm, across the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon,” Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said.
The Blue Line is the United Nations-designated border between Israel and Lebanon. Although United Nations Security Council resolutions long ago mandated Hezbollah’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the Iran-backed group has consolidated and strengthened its positions with an arsenal capable of putting Israel’s entire population at risk. of rocket fire.
“Hezbollah very much wants to avoid an all-out confrontation,” said Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“I think their very quick denials underscore their fear and concern that – although they are willing to engage in an all-out confrontation, that would not be popular in Lebanon.”
Still, Hezbollah calibrated its attacks over 10 months, Yacoubian said. Hezbollah’s ability to demonstrate the breadth of its munitions arsenal and attack Israel, with propaganda videos showing that it penetrated Israeli airspace using surveillance drones, serves as a warning to Israel, but also reinforces its image as a defender of Lebanon and Iran’s axis of resistance against Israel.
“We have seen a steady increase in Hezbollah pushing the envelope, trying to see what they can do, in some ways escalating to try to deter Israel, frankly, and also seeing how far they can push the envelope without pushing it into full-on confrontation,” Yacoubian said.
U.S. officials declined to comment on whether they warned Israeli authorities against attacking Hezbollah targets in Beirut. Yacoubian said the Lebanese capital is seen as a “red line”.
“Attacking targets in Beirut could easily lead to the kind of uncontrolled escalation that many fear,” she said.
Hezbollah’s deadly attack occurred at the same time the US was engaged in negotiations in Rome to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Kirby told reporters on Monday that there is “no indication” that the escalation of the conflict on Israel’s northern border “will negatively affect these discussions.”
Israeli authorities have promised to impose a “severe” and “high” price on Hezbollah. Still, Jerusalem has previously demonstrated that the military can carry out limited retaliatory strikes that avoid triggering a major escalation.
This includes Israel’s attack on Iran’s air defense systems and targets near a nuclear facility in Isfahan in retaliation for an April 13 missile attack. The attack was limited in damage but targeted on message – showing Israel’s ability to penetrate Iran’s defenses and revealing its knowledge of sensitive locations.
Additionally, Israel struck the port of Hodeidah in Yemen – killing at least six people and destroying oil installations and damaging infrastructure – in retaliation for a drone attack launched on July 19 by the Iran-backed Houthis that killed an Israeli civilian and injured another 10.
But the deaths of 12 children – aged between 11 and 16 – in the northern Israeli town of Majdal Shams was particularly devastating. The dead belong to Israel’s Druze community, a religious and ethnically Arab minority numbering around 150,000 people in Israel’s population of 9.5 million. The Druze of Majdal Shams are largely of Syrian descent, coming under Israeli occupation after the 1967 war in which Israel took control of the Golan Heights. Israel annexed the territory in 1981 and the US recognizes it as sovereign Israeli territory, although most of the international community describes it as occupied.
And although many of those who live in the village do not have Israeli citizenship, the community as a whole is a source of pride in Israel as an example of tolerance and integration between Jews and Arabs, with high levels of political participation and military service relative to its small population.
But residents of Majdal Shams demonstrated against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit on Monday, with at least one person holding a sign that says “war criminal”underlining the majority opinion in Israel of low confidence in the prime minister: 57 percent of respondents in a July survey of the Jewish People Policy Institute reported a “very low” level of trust in Netanyahu.
There is little consensus among Israeli society about what needs to happen next in the north, where tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced during 10 months of gunfire between Israel and Hezbollah. Forty-two percent want a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah, while 38 percent think a military victory should be sought, according to a June survey by the Israel Democracy Institute.
“After the massacre of children by Hezbollah, there is a lot of anger and intense emotions. Hezbollah has been bombing for months and months, and there is a lot of frustration, including with the government,” said Eman Safady, press officer for the Jerusalem Press Club, who was the first Druze woman to serve on Israel’s military radio station.
“But we have to remember that, ultimately, Hezbollah is responsible. There are different views on whether a larger war should be fought in light of Saturday’s events.”
A statement by Druze leaders, called the Religious and Temporal Commission on the Occupied Syrian Golan, warned against further war.
“From our unitary Arab-Islamic point of view, we reject the shedding of a single drop of blood under the pretext of avenging our children,” the committee wrote.
“History testifies that we were and continue to be defenders of peace and harmony between peoples and nations.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
