Dr Lina Khatib
The Gaza conflict has changed the rules of engagement between Israel and Hezbollah. Prior to 7 October, they both adhered to a de facto code of conflict that had been in place since their 2006 war.
The unwritten rules limited the scope of Hezbollah’s attacks to Israeli-held territory like the Shebaa Farms (territory purported to be disputed in terms of state ownership but which the government in Beirut says is Lebanese) rather than areas inside Israel itself. Over the past nine months, however, these rules have become elastic.
Hezbollah – a heavily armed, Iran-backed force – entered the fray of the Gaza conflict by launching rockets on Israeli-held territory in October.
Its involvement quickly expanded to include strikes deeper inside Israel. The latter retaliated by initially striking Hezbollah military targets close to the Israel-Lebanon border, but later also widened the scope of its attacks to cover a greater area of southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley.
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