By Nayef Zidani

Several Israeli journalists and analysts indicated today, Sunday, that the confrontation between the Israeli occupation army and the Lebanese Hezbollah may deteriorate into a wide-scale war if diplomatic efforts fail. Some of them considered that the main war front has shifted from Gaza to Lebanon due to the escalation of battles, especially Yesterday, Saturday.

Journalist Yossi Yehoshua wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that although Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is “sending signals about his search for a strategy to exit the current round of fighting, yesterday the party bombed a strategic target in the Northern Command.”

Yehoshua considered that, “Three months after the strike on Israel by Hamas in the south, and despite the presence of a large number of occupation soldiers still fighting today in the Gaza Strip, Gaza is no longer the main war front,” adding: “ Even if Israel and Hezbollah had not planned for things to deteriorate this way, we can no longer close our eyes and talk to ourselves about another normal day of battles. The events of the weekend indicated another escalation, even if Hezbollah has not yet launched missiles over long distances that would cost it the declaration. "Officially, there is a wide-scale war, and it is clear that the escalation may get out of control."

The Israeli writer pointed out that “Hezbollah not only intensively launched dozens of rockets towards Israeli military targets, but it also fired towards a strategic target in the Northern Command” as part of the response to the assassination of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, while the occupation army, in turn, bombed several Targets in Lebanon.

Despite the escalation, the writer saw that efforts are still continuing to avoid escalation: “International efforts are continuing in an attempt to reach a formula that leads to calm, and Nasrallah’s recent speech seemed like his exit strategy from the round of battles,” but despite this, “this does not convince Defense Minister Yoav Galant indicated that Israel also prefers the diplomatic path, but at the same time hinted that time is running out.

The newspaper indicated that Israel informed Amos Hockstein, the American mediator between Lebanon and the Israeli occupation, who visited Israel last Thursday, that Israel will not give up its request to “remove the threat on the front line.”

Hezbollah's continued focus on the north

For his part, the military analyst in the newspaper "Haaretz", Amos Harel, believes that Israel is still containing the current situation in the north, and considers it the least bad thing. Regarding the intense missile attacks yesterday, Harel said that they "did not result in any casualties, but they targeted sites further south." "More importantly, is the main target around which the launch operations were focused, Jabal al-Jarmaq (Meron in Hebrew), where the northern air surveillance unit of the Israeli Air Force is stationed, and where radars monitor all movement in the Syrian and Lebanese airspace." .

Harel considered, "At the present time, the most likely possibility is that Hezbollah will continue to focus on the north of the country, and not try to expand the confrontation to its center (i.e., launch missiles over greater distances). However, these estimates can be misleading."

Harel continues that the limits of bombing between the two parties seem satisfactory to Israel so far: “We have reached a situation in which Israel considers that the large-scale shooting, which has been ongoing for three months, and which led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of its citizens from their homes, is the least bad option. As long as the response Hezbollah appears within the current scope, while Israel is also limiting the scope and intensity of its attacks.

As for the Israeli writer and commentator Zvi Barel, he considered, in an analytical article in the Haaretz newspaper, that Hassan Nasrallah “sees that there is an opportunity to settle the borders, but the military confrontation has its own rules,” and that “the front closest to deterioration is the Lebanon front.”

Bar'el added, "The Secretary-General of Hezbollah fulfilled his promise yesterday to avenge the assassination of Al-Arouri, but he is still moving cautiously in the deterrence equation. The organization's approval of the final demarcation of the land borders between Israel and Lebanon may push the diplomatic channel between the two parties forward. But there are still many problems." Obstacles in the way."

Barel points out that there is an opportunity to reduce the escalation: “At the same time, Nasrallah also had an important statement that may strengthen the diplomatic channel between Israel and Lebanon,” by which he means Nasrallah’s indication, during his last speech, of the existence of a historic opportunity to liberate all Lebanese territory and establish the equation that prevents the (Israeli) enemy is violating Lebanon’s sovereignty, which the Israeli writer considered a call by Nasrallah to demarcate the land borders between Israel and Lebanon, which may constitute a way out of the war and prevent its deterioration, adding that the American mediator Amos Hockstein is trying to push in this direction.

On the other hand, the writer pointed out that “completing the demarcation of the borders, especially in the Shebaa Farms area, will require overcoming a difficult political obstacle that does not relate only to Lebanon or Israel. Israel claims - and the United Nations supports its claim - that these lands were under Syrian sovereignty, and that it occupied them in The Six-Day War. Therefore, any border settlement in the Shebaa Farms will take place within the framework of negotiations with Syria and not with Lebanon. Lebanon, for its part, claims that the region is subject to its sovereignty.”

Bar'el said, "The main question is whether the Lebanese government and American mediation efforts will succeed in severing the relationship between Gaza and Lebanon, and essentially, whether the violent dialogue between Israel and Hezbollah will not mix the cards and cause a comprehensive confrontation that may turn into a regional war?"

Source: Alaraby Aljadeed