Tensions Between Israel and Iran Heighten Fears of a Larger Conflict

WALL STREET JOURNAL-Dec 28th2023

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Iranian-backed militants and Israeli forces traded fire across Israel’s northern border while Israeli leaders warned that time was running out for diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions in that area, heightening fears that the war in Gaza could spill into a broader regional conflict including Lebanon and Syria.

“The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out,” said Benny Gantz, a senior member of the Israeli war cabinet, on Wednesday. “If the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the Israeli military will do it.”

The Israeli military said it returned fire Thursdayafter Hezbollah militants in Lebanon fired into Israel. A separate Israeli airstrike on Wednesday killed three people, including two Lebanese-Australian citizens, while Israel and the militant group Hezbollah exchanged fire. An Iranian-backed Iraqi militia claimed responsibility for an uncrewed aircraft carrying explosives that crash-landed into part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel.

Israel on Thursday intercepted another uncrewed aircraft from Lebanon in the Krayot area of northern Israel, the military said.

The rise in violence comes after an airstrike in Syria on Monday killed a senior official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees a network of paramilitary groups throughout the Middle East. Israel is widely believed to have launched the attack but hasn’t claimed responsibility for it. At a funeral prayer service attended by thousands in Tehran on Thursday, Iranian leaders vowed to avenge the killing of the official, Sayyed Razi Mousavi.

The escalation in violence along Israel’s northern frontiers is raising concerns that its war with Hamas in Gaza could spiral into an all-out confrontation with Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah movement and a range of other Iranian-allied militant groups across the region. Israel and Hezbollah have regularly exchanged fire since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that launched the current conflict, but international pressure, including from the Biden administration, has so far helped to keep the Israel-Lebanon front contained.

Boaz Ganor, president of Israel’s Reichman University, called the current situation a “controlled escalation,” with Israel and Hezbollah both still reluctant to take steps that could snowball into a wider war. He said a full-blown conflict between Hezbollah and Israel wasn’t in the interest of the various players involved, especially the U.S.

A full-scale confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah could be devastating for both sides. Hezbollah, with tens of thousands of battle-tested fighters and an arsenal of missiles and other weapons provided by Iran, is a far more capable adversary than the relatively lightly armed Hamas. During the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Israel heavily bombed Lebanon, including the Beirut airport and other civilian infrastructure, while Hezbollah rained rockets on Israel.