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27 September 2024

Israel’s Attacks on Hezbollah Intensify but Stop Short of All-Out War

Patrick Kingsley

Exploding pagers on Tuesday. Detonating walkie-talkies on Wednesday. An unusually intense barrage of bombs on Thursday. And a huge strike on southern Beirut on Friday.

Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, this week constitute a significant escalation in the 11-month war between the two sides. For nearly a year, Israel and Hezbollah have fought a low-level conflict, mostly along the Israeli-Lebanese border, that has gradually gathered force without ever exploding into an all-out war.

Now, Israel is attempting a riskier playbook. It has markedly increased the intensity of its attacks in an attempt to force Hezbollah to back down, while raising the chances of the opposite outcome: a more aggressive response from Hezbollah that devolves into an unbridled land war.

Israel has sabotaged Hezbollah’s communications devices, blowing up hundreds, if not thousands, of them in a widespread cyberattack. Its fighter jets have pounded southern Lebanon with rare intensity. And on Friday afternoon, they struck Beirut, the Lebanese capital, for the first time since July — killing a senior Hezbollah military commander, according to Israeli officials, and collapsing two buildings, according to Lebanese officials.

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