By Isabel Kershner and Euan Ward
Tensions were running high on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border Monday in anticipation of an escalation in hostilities, after Israel’s security Cabinet authorized its leaders to decide on the nature and timing of a military response to a deadly rocket attack from Lebanon over the weekend.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, received the authorization from the Cabinet members in a meeting Sunday night, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.
Israeli politicians have been vocal about the need for a significant military blow in retaliation for the rocket strike, which killed 12 children and teenagers Saturday in the Druse Arab village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The Iran-backed militia group Hezbollah, which has been sending rockets into Israel for months, denied responsibility for the attack, but Israel and the United States have blamed the group.
Visiting the scene of the strike Monday, Netanyahu said of the victims, “These children are our children, the children of all of us. Israel will not and cannot let this pass and carry on as usual. Our response is coming, and it will be severe.”
Israeli analysts said Hezbollah was most likely aiming at a nearby army base on Mount Hermon and did not intentionally target the village. But the group’s use of inaccurate rockets in an area dotted with civilian communities led to the kind of unintended consequence that risks sparking an all-out war, they said.
In striking back, Netanyahu must now make his own calculations so that any Israeli retaliation does not expand the conflict more broadly than planned.
Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Israel needed to respond to meet the expectations of the minority Druse community and Israeli public opinion in general, and so as not to show weakness to the enemy. (Local residents heckled Netanyahu in Majdal Shams, telling him they had no security and chanting “Murderer! Murderer!” at him, videos posted on social media showed.)
But both sides appeared to be signaling that they did not want a full-blown conflagration, Yaari said, with each watching the other’s movements across the border.
The response will likely be carefully focused in the hope of preventing a prolonged escalation, he said, adding, “There are a lot of ways that Israel could act. There are plenty of targets in the bank.”
Since the strike on Majdal Shams on Saturday, there have been continued exchanges across the border, but they have seemed to fall within the bounds of the routine tit-for-tat of the past few months. The Israeli military said overnight that its aerial defense systems successfully intercepted an unmanned aircraft that crossed from Lebanon into northwestern Israel.
On Monday morning, a drone strike in southern Lebanon killed two people and injured three others, including a child, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. The strike targeted a vehicle on the road between two border villages, according to Lebanese media reports.
At least two towns were also hit overnight by Israeli airstrikes, the agency reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on those attacks.
Hezbollah began firing across Israel’s northern border nearly 10 months ago in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though the strikes and Israel’s responses have been mostly small scale. In the wake of the attack Saturday, Western diplomats have been scrambling to try to prevent any major Israeli retaliation and Hezbollah counter-response from spiraling into an all-out war, even as the fighting between Israel and Hamas continues in the south.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a call from Tokyo on Monday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah.” But he also emphasized “the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict and discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution” to the hostilities, according to Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the rocket attack Saturday that struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams. But the Israeli military said the type of rocket used in the attack is Iranian-made and carries more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives. Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon that possesses such rockets, the military said.
And on Sunday, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said in a statement that Hezbollah had organized the attack. “It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control,” the statement said.
Gallant described Hezbollah’s denials as “ridiculous” after a visit to the Israeli military’s northern command headquarters Sunday. He warned that Hezbollah would pay “a heavy price” for the strike.
After a restless night, many in Lebanon were relieved Monday to find there had been no major Israeli retaliation overnight. Children made their way to school. Bakeries fired up their ovens and the roads were clogged with traffic as people went about their daily commute.
“It was cool to wake up and find that I was alive,” said Mohamed Awada, 52, a taxi driver and father of two who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
But fears continued to linger in Lebanon as the country awaited the expected Israeli response amid a highly unpredictable time for the Middle East. Embassies in Lebanon reissued warnings against travel to the country, and urged foreign citizens to leave while flights are still available.
Rena Bitter, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, described a “complex and quickly changing situation” in a video released by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Monday.
Bitter said that U.S. citizens in Lebanon “should be prepared to shelter in place for long periods of time” if commercial flights were halted. “We recommend that U.S. citizens develop a crisis plan of action and leave before a crisis begins,” Bitter said.
Some airlines, including the Lufthansa Group, have suspended or adjusted their flight schedules in Lebanon amid the heightened tensions. Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s national carrier, cited “insurance risks” as a reason for rescheduling overnight flights arriving in Beirut, according to a statement.
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