Israeli soldiers carry their belongings in an area near the Israel-Lebanon border January 29, 2015.AMMAR AWAD/Reuters
Israeli forces and fighters from the militant Lebanese Hezbollah movement had a brief but deadly exchange this week along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UN peacekeeper were killed and several other people wounded in what was the most violent episode between the two sides since their 34-day war in the summer of 2006.
I remember that conflict vividly – I was in Lebanon for a good chunk of it. Israeli bombs and missiles fell all over the country, damaging roads, knocking out bridges and hammering the Hezbollah neighbourhood of South Beirut. More than 1,200 Lebanese and more than 160 Israelis were killed in the campaign (including military personnel and civilians) and Israel was forced to invade the country in an attempt to silence Hezbollah.
That war started when Shia militia attacked two Israeli armoured personnel carriers patrolling the Lebanese border, killing three soldiers and abducting two others. For a while, on Wednesday, it looked like this latest dust-up also might escalate into something bigger. Shia Lebanese residents of South Beirut even began to leave their homes in anticipation of attack.
Then, as quickly as it had started, the crisis abated. By Thursday, both sides had signalled their willingness to stand down. Hezbollah had achieved its objective and Israel silently acknowledged the fact.
The exchange really had begun 10 days earlier, on Jan. 18, when two Hezbollah vehicles were struck by missiles as they passed near the abandoned Syrian town of Quneitra not far from the 1974 ceasefire line between Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.
Although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied it, you can be sure that, for all intents and purposes, the missiles were Israeli.
The target had been Jihad Mughniyeh, 25, a prominent member of Hezbollah. Seven years ago, his father, Imad Mughniyeh, a senior military commander in Hezbollah, was assassinated by a car bomb in Damascus. Also killed along with the younger Mr. Mughniyeh were five other members of Hezbollah's military force and an Iranian commander, General Mohammed Ali Allah-Dadi.
Both Hezbollah and Iran were quick to denounce Israel for the attack and vowed revenge. Iran said "the Zionists should prepare themselves for our devastating thunderbolts," while Hezbollah promised a reprisal attack would be severe.
Israel took the threats seriously and put its northern border area on high alert.
For days, nothing happened. Then, on Tuesday, a couple of rockets fired from within Syria fell on Mount Hermon, a Syrian mountain that dominates the northeast corner of the Golan Heights occupied by Israel. The mountain serves both as a listening and viewing post from which Israel can monitor what Bashar al-Assad has for breakfast, and as a ski resort. The Israel Defence Force cleared the slopes Tuesday as a precaution.
Later that night the IDF targeted Syrian Army artillery posts inside Syria.
The following morning, Hezbollah struck.
A series of five guided anti-tank missiles were launched from a distance of about four km on a small Israeli military convoy travelling near the Shebaa Farms, the last piece of Lebanese territory still held by Israel. [The Shebaa area technically is part of Syria, but that's another story.]
The vehicles struck were not armoured vehicles, Israeli media reported, and two Israeli soldiers were killed, seven wounded in the attack. Pictures of the burning wrecks of two vehicles were shown on Israeli television.
Mission accomplished, as far as Hezbollah was concerned. The group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as retaliation for the "fallen martyrs of the Quneitra Brigade."
Hezbollah had chosen the target carefully. The convoy closely resembled the Hezbollah targets struck Jan. 18; even the venue was similar, a disputed territory with murky rules. "What happens in Shebaa, stays in Shebaa," acknowledged Major General Israel Ziv, former head of IDF operations, who said that was precisely why Hezbollah chose the location.
They could have attacked inside Israel, but that would have required Israel to strike back hard. A strike on a school bus, a city or a village would have signalled a desire to drag Israel into an all-out war.
Orit Perlov at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies noted on Twitter that Hezbollah's reprisal was "symmetrical eye 4 eye."
The important thing for Hezbollah was to re-establish its deterrent credibility. Ever since the 2006 conflict, when Hezbollah's fierce resistance led to the withdrawal of the Israeli forces invading Lebanon, the Shia movement has made it clear, any attack on its people would be met with retaliation. Just as Israel makes it clear that any attack on its people will result in a military response.
For more than eight years, the mutual threat of deterrence has meant a relatively peaceful border.
In this instance, Hezbollah responded in kind and the incident ended without further escalation.
Israelis, however, must be asking themselves two questions. First, why were IDF personnel travelling in unarmoured vehicles so close to hostile forces when a retaliatory strike could have come at any moment? And second, while Wednesday's strike may satisfy Hezbollah's need for reprisal for the moment, will Iran be satisfied with this? Or is there something else likely to come Israel's way?