This is an excerpt from Security Briefing, Al-Monitor's weekly newsletter covering defense and conflict developments in the Middle East. To get Security Briefing in your inbox, sign up here.
With all eyes focused on Rafah, another conflict is simmering on Israel’s northern border — one distinct but inextricably linked to the war in Gaza, and which US officials have worried for months could spill over into a wider regional war with Iran.
Wildfires blazed across the dry hills of northern Israel this week, ignited, Israeli officials said, by near-daily rockets and drones fired across the border by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Top Israeli officials have been threatening for months to open a new military assault against the Lebanese juggernaut militant group in a bid to push its fighters away from the Israeli border.
