Patrick Kingsley
Israel’s deadly strikes and evacuation warnings in Lebanon on Monday showed its determination to break the resolve of Hezbollah and force the militia, which controls scores of villages across southern Lebanon, to stop its cross-border attacks on Israel.
The moves also reflected how far Israel is from achieving that goal — and how close both sides are to an all-out war.
Israeli officials had hoped that by scaling up their attacks over the past week — striking Hezbollah’s communications tools, and killing several key commanders as well as Lebanese civilians — they would unnerve the group and persuade it to withdraw from the Israel-Lebanon border. The officials believed that if they increased the cost of Hezbollah’s campaign, it would be easier for foreign diplomats, like Amos Hochstein, a senior United States envoy, to get the group to stand down.
For now, the opposite has happened. Despite days of escalatory attacks from Israel, Hezbollah has pledged not to buckle under the pressure.
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