What Israel should do about Hezbollah

On Tuesday, Hezbollah launched its deepest attack into Israel since the current round of hostilities between Jerusalem and the Iran-supported Islamist group began last October. Sirens sounded in the town of Acre as drones and rockets were launched at what pro-Hezbollah media described as ‘military targets’ between Acre and Nahariya. There were no casualties. In response, Israeli aircraft struck at Hezbollah targets across the border. 

Hezbollah’s decision to strike further south appear to have come in response to the targeted killing by Israel of one of the movement’s senior commanders the previous day. Mohammed Khalil Atiyeh, a senior member of the organisation’s elite Radwan Force from the village of Sarfand in southern Lebanon, was killed in a targeted attack in the Arsoun area, on the night of 22 April. 

Atiyeh, described in the death notice issued by Hezbollah as a ‘martyr jihadi’ killed ‘on the road to Jerusalem’, was the 287^th Hezbollah member acknowledged by the movement to have died since 8 October.