SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Hezbollah has vowed to avenge the death and wounding of its members in the pager attack on September 17 and the subsequent incident of exploding radios that took place the next day. It’s not clear how many Hezbollah members were killed, but the number appears to be more than two dozen. Hezbollah says it will retaliate in a way that Israel cannot yet imagine, according to a report at the Hezbollah media Al-Manar.
The Lebanese-based terrorist group has an equation that it looks to for attacks on Israel. In essence this means the group follows certain “rules” in the war it launched on October 8 when it began attacks on the Jewish state to support Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah has carried out attacks on northern Israel, usually at a depth of a few miles. Whenever it believes Israel has carried out a strike in Lebanon that represents an escalation, Hezbollah then escalates proportionately. It couches this in claims that it is merely responding.
Throughout the 11 months of conflict, Hezbollah has said that certain incidents go beyond the tit-for-tat strikes. For instance, the killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut in July was a redline. Shukr was only killed because of the Hezbollah attack on Majdal Shams, which killed 12 children and teens. However, Hezbollah didn’t apologize for that attack and pretended it was not responsible. As such, it then opened an “account” to pay back Israel for the killing of Shukr. Retaliation came on August 25 when Hezbollah tried to launch thousands of rockets at Israel. Israel preempted that attack with airstrikes and only several hundred rockets were launched.
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