Hezbollah's attack on Safad... messages, implications, and escalation scenarios

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For more than 4 months, the exchange of bombardments between the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation forces along the border in southern Lebanon has not subsided, but the escalation witnessed a remarkable development today that may constitute a turning point that takes the calculated operations between the two parties out of the framework they have followed since October 8. The past, according to observers.

Israeli sources announced the killing of a female soldier and the injury of 8 soldiers, some of whom were in critical condition, in a missile attack launched by Hezbollah that targeted military bases around the city of Safed in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel. This was what Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir considered an “actual war” launched by the party against Israel and called for "To abandon the hypothesis currently in place in the north with Lebanon."

What's new about targeting Safed?

Perhaps the nature of the target struck by Hezbollah missiles on Tuesday and the depth to which these missiles were able to reach is the most important feature of this bombing, which Israeli media described as “the most dangerous attack since the outbreak of the war on the northern front.”

Israeli sources explained that the bombing targeted the Northern Command, the air base in Meron, and a military base in Safed. They said that the number of missiles reached 8. They said that the Lebanese Hezbollah used precision missiles in its bombing of the city of Safed in the Upper Galilee, and that the Iron Dome failed to intercept the last missile.

The Israeli response was not long in coming. Hours after the painful strike by Hezbollah, Israeli fighters launched intense raids on several towns in southern Lebanon, which have so far resulted in 4 deaths and 11 others injured.

With this dangerous escalation and the burning front, many questions arise about its timing, the messages that Hezbollah wanted to pass through it, and the Israeli response scenarios, according to which it may be determined whether the calculated mutual bombardment between the two parties will turn into a comprehensive war.

Timing of the attack

The bombing of Safed comes one day after Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah sent strong messages to Israel, declaring the party's readiness to expand the scope of the confrontation if Israel seeks to do so.

Nasrallah said, "The Israeli Minister of War, who threatens to expand Israeli operations against Lebanon, must realize that if he launches a war against Lebanon, he must prepare shelters for two million Israeli refugees from the north, not just 100,000." He stressed that the shooting from southern Lebanon would not stop until the aggression on Gaza ended.

The escalation also comes amid news of a French proposal to stop the mutual bombing between Hezbollah and Israel on both sides of the border, which Nasrallah touched upon in his speech when he said, “The political gains that are being waved at us from here and there will not affect us and will not make us stop the front.”

He stressed that the delegations that came to Lebanon during the past months aimed to secure Israel and return 100,000 settlers to the northern settlements.

The targeting of Safad also comes days after the Israeli escalation, as an Israeli march targeted a car carrying a local Hezbollah leader the day before yesterday, Monday, in Bint Jbeil in Nabatieh Governorate, but he escaped death and was seriously injured.

Last Saturday, Israel also targeted a leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the town of Jadra, about 40 kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border, in the second targeting outside the southern border region since the start of the escalation of the war in Gaza.

Messages and meanings

Observers believe that Hezbollah's targeting of a military base in Safed, which is 15 kilometers from the Lebanese border, comes within the framework of its response to Israel's transfer of the confrontation to a new square, whether in terms of the nature of the targets it struck or their location in areas deep inside Lebanon during the past days, as stated in A framework for responding to Israeli threats to expand the confrontation with the party.

Writer and political analyst Faisal Abdel Sater believes that Hezbollah's operation is part of a show of force, a response to the imminent Israeli attack on the city of Rafah, and the faltering negotiations aimed at reaching a long truce in Gaza or a long-term ceasefire in the Strip.

Abdel Sater said in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the party wanted, by targeting the Israeli military base in Safed, to send a political message to Israel and emphasize that the party will not stand idly by in the face of what is happening in Gaza, and that this front will remain burning according to developments on the ground in the Strip.

He explains that the party is leading the battle with a clear vision and strategy, but it relies on developments on the ground and not on plans drawn up in advance, and he wanted to say through the recent escalation, “If the Israeli enemy wants to go further than that, Hezbollah is ready and its missiles, which it has not yet used, are ready as well.” ".

As for the military expert and retired Major General Mahmoud Irdisat, he links the timing of Hezbollah’s attack on Safad to the faltering talks on a truce in Cairo, the ambiguity surrounding the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza, in addition to the intense bombing and Israeli military operations in many areas of Gaza and the threat of an imminent invasion of Rafah.

He says that what happened is a message from Hezbollah to Israel confirming what the party was repeating regarding its refusal to eliminate Hamas, and he believes that “with this strike, the target was chosen to be inside occupied Palestine in Safed and in a military area, and it led to the death of a female soldier and the wounding of others, and with a very accurate missile.” In the region, it gives Israel a signal that we have weapons that we can use very accurately and in the Israeli depths if the occupation continues with this momentum towards Rafah.”

Will escalation lead to all-out war?

It is not yet clear how far Israel will go in its response to the Hezbollah attack, although the statements of some of its ministers during the hours that followed the attack included a threat not only to Hezbollah, but also to Lebanon. The Minister in the Israeli War Council, Benny Gantz, said that the person responsible for launching the missiles was from Lebanon is not only Hezbollah, but the State of Lebanon. He vowed that the response to the launching of missiles towards the north would come soon and with force.

Meanwhile, Ben Gvir called for a change in dealing with the confrontations with Hezbollah, and said that launching missiles from southern Lebanon constitutes a war on Israel.

Shortly after Israeli media announced that the Israeli War Council was examining how to respond to the bombing launched by Hezbollah on Safad, Israeli fighters were pouring their fire on many targets in southern Lebanon, which raises the question of the extent to which Israel will go in its response to the attack. .

While some of them warn that what is happening is a turning point that indicates the beginning of a confrontation that may turn into an all-out war, retired Major General Mahmoud Irdesat believes that Israel will keep the escalation controlled at this stage.

He expresses his belief that the Israeli response will be directed against "unspecified targets within 5 or 10 kilometers of the border around which clashes have been taking place since the beginning of this war, and will extend to selecting targets inside Lebanon that belong to Hezbollah."

But he does not rule out that the Israeli response will go further, in light of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to prolong the war, shuffle the cards, and drag the United States into a direct war with Iran and its agents in the region.

In turn, political analyst Faisal Abdel Sater does not rule out the scenario of the situation developing into a comprehensive Israeli war on Lebanon, as “Netanyahu is in a major crisis and has not been able to achieve any of his goals in Gaza. He is seeking to prolong the war and drag the United States directly into it, and he aspires to achieve this in The Lebanese Front specifically.”

Source: Al Jazeera