Israel and Hezbollah Play a Risky Tit-for-Tat, Leaving Region on Edge

As the war has raged in Gaza, another battle has unfurled in parallel along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon — a risky game of tit-for-tat that has intensified in recent weeks, with a far stronger foe.

In a measure of the danger of a full-scale war erupting, President Biden dispatched one of his senior aides, Amos Hochstein, to Israel on Monday and to Lebanon on Tuesday to press for a diplomatic solution.

Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian militia fighting Israel in Gaza, Hezbollah has troops who are battle-hardened combatants, and the group possesses long-range, precision-guided missiles that can strike targets deep inside Israel.

Despite apparent efforts by both sides to keep the cycle of strikes and counterstrikes from spiraling into a full-blown war beyond the one raging in Gaza, civilians in Israel and Lebanon have been killed, and more than 150,000 people have been forced from their homes along the border.

But as the fighting in recent days has intensified, so too have fears that a miscalculation could draw the sides into deeper conflict. Hezbollah has said it will not negotiate a truce until Israel ends its military campaign in Gaza, which is likely to continue for weeks or months.

A stronger, better armed militia

Israeli military officials had long anticipated that well-trained gunmen might one day tear across their border, heading for towns and military bases, as Hamas did on Oct. 7. But they tended to look to the north, fearing Hezbollah’s elite fighters rather than the relatively weaker Palestinian armed group.