Jonathan Spyer
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF spokesman’s office issued a laconic statement, according to which Israeli forces have commenced ‘raids… based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.’
With this terse announcement, Israel signalled that its 18-year policy of restraint and reaction on its northern border was definitively over, and that the door has been opened to something new.
How did we reach this point? The last war between Israel and the Iran-supported Shia Islamist Hezbollah organisation came to an official end on August 14, 2006. UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war, forbade Hezbollah from any armed presence south of the Litani river.
For most of the intervening years, Israel pursued a cautious, even hesitant policy on the border. It made no serious attempt to intervene as Hezbollah rapidly brushed aside the terms of 1701 and the UN force detailed with implementing it, and began to construct a fearsome, open military capacity extending down to the Blue Line of withdrawal and the border fence.
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