Israel plans ‘painful and incisive’ response to Hezbollah but not all-out Lebanon war
Israeli leaders assess they can't afford to leave the rocket attack that killed 12 children in Majdal Shams with no response, but at the same time seek to avoid an all-out war in Lebanon with Hezbollah.
TEL AVIV — Israel is seeking a carefully calibrated response to Hezbollah’s rocket attack that killed 12 children and teens on a football field on Saturday, trying to avoid an all-out war with Iran’s Lebanese proxy but to mount forceful, credible retaliation.
“We can't afford to let Hezbollah get away with this crime unscathed,” a senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “The response must be painful, clear and incisive, otherwise we may as well move out of this neighborhood."
Military chiefs have presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with several response options according to varying degrees of severity and strategic significance. These range from assassinations of Hezbollah officials, depending on the intelligence that can be compiled on their whereabouts, to damaging Hezbollah's strategic infrastructure in the Lebanese capital of Beirut or its predominantly Shiite southern suburb of Dahiya. Potential targets include air and sea ports, Hezbollah missile stockpiles, Lebanese government infrastructure and symbols, and cybersystems.
As the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights buried its youngsters on Sunday, the reverberations of what the Israeli authorities described as Iranian-made Falaq rocket with its 53-kilogram (117-pound) warhead spread far and wide. From Tehran to Washington, top officials warned against Israeli retaliation of such severity that would escalate into a full-scale regional war. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack.
Israel occupied the Golan Heights after the 1967 war and annexed the territory in 1982.
