One day after a flare-up along the border left two Israeli soldiers and a UN ceasefire observer dead, both Israeli and Hezbollah officials are signaling the incident is over, and that there won’t be a major escalation.
Lebanese officials say that they were informed by Israel that they will “make do with what happened yesterday” and won’t launch any further retaliation. The Israeli attacks centered on Lebanese military bases, and killed a UN peacekeeper.
Hezbollah had already indicated that they had no intention of escalation beyond the five rockets fired Wednesday, which killed the two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others.
Hezbollah aimed for the strike to be a nominal retaliation for last week’s Israeli attack on Syria, which killed six Hezbollah fighters, including the group’s top anti-ISIS leader. The attack also killed an Iranian general.
Some Israeli officials were pushing for a new war in the wake of yesterday’s strike, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman leading the charge. With Israeli elections less than two months away, however, there was a lot of perception that the calls for war were political.