Hezbollah<\/a>, killing senior commanders and hitting targets further inside Lebanon.<\/p>\nHezbollah has sent larger volleys of drones and missiles across the border this month, and threats on both sides have increased. Earlier this week, the group published drone footage of military installations and civilian infrastructure in the Israeli city of Haifa.<\/p>\n
Tough talk has long been part of a mutual strategy of deterrence, with both sides seen as wary of all-out war.<\/p>\n
But as the tit-for-tat conflict grinds on, and more than 60,000 Israelis remain evacuated from their homes in the north, there are signs that both Israel\u2019s leaders and its citizens are prepared to support military options to push Hezbollah back from the border by force.<\/p>\n
The mayor of Kiryat Shmona, Avichai Stern, shows me the site where a rocket hit a street near his office last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there is any country in the world would accept daily fire against its citizens,\u201d Mayor Stern said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd sitting here like lambs to slaughter, waiting for the day they will raid us like we saw in the south, that\u2019s not acceptable. Everyone understands that the choice is between war now or war later.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dangerous stalemate here hinges largely on the war Israel is fighting more than 100 miles (160km) to the south in Gaza.<\/p>\n
A ceasefire there would help calm tensions in the north too, but Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keeping both conflicts going, mortgaged by his promise to far-right government allies to destroy Hamas before ending the Gaza War.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week even the Israeli military spokesman said this goal may not be realistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that we can destroy Hamas or make Hamas disappear is misleading to the public,\u201d Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israeli TV.<\/p>\n
On the Lebanese side of the border, where more than 90,000 people have been evacuated, the mood among those who have stayed is similarly grim.<\/p>\n
Israel has been hitting southern Lebanon with air strikes<\/p>\n
Fatima Belhas lives a few miles (7km) from the Israeli border, near Jbal el Botm.<\/p>\n
In the early days, she would shake with fear when Israel bombed the area, she says, but has since come to terms with the bombardments and no longer thinks of leaving.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere would I go?\u201d she asked. \u201c[Others] have relatives elsewhere. But how can I impose on someone like that? We have no money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it is better to die at home with dignity,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have grown up resisting. We won\u2019t be driven out of our land like the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hussein Aballan recently left his village of Mays al Jbal, around 6 miles (10km) from Kiryat Shmona, on the Lebanese side of the border.<\/p>\n
Life there had become impossible, he said, with erratic communications and electricity, and almost no functioning shops.<\/p>\n
The few dozen families left there are mainly older people who refuse to leave their homes and farms, he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
But he backed the Hezbollah assault on Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in the south [of Lebanon] has lived through years of aggression, but has come out stronger,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly through resistance are we strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BBC saw damage in southern Lebanon from Israeli fire in May<\/p>\n
As difficult as this border conflict is for people on both sides, a full-scale war would lift the crisis onto a different scale.<\/p>\n
Some residents of Beirut are keeping suitcases packed and passports ready, in case of all-out conflict, and the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said this week that nowhere in Israel would be spared.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah is a well-armed, well-trained army, backed by Iran; Israel, a sophisticated military power with the US as an ally.<\/p>\n
Full-scale war is likely to be devastating for both sides.<\/p>\n
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said it would be a \u201ccatastrophe that goes [\u2026] beyond imagination\u201d.<\/p>\n
The problem for Israel is how to stop the rockets and get its people back to the abandoned northern areas of the country.<\/p>\n
The problem for Hezbollah is how to stop the rockets when its ally, Hamas, is being pounded by Israeli forces in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The longer that situation grinds on, the more the risks of a miscalculation increase, and the more Israel\u2019s government is under pressure to resolve the situation.<\/p>\n
The Hamas attacks on 7 October changed security calculations in Israel. Many of those with homes near the border \u2013 and some of those in positions of power \u2013 say the kind of agreement made with Hezbollah in the past is no longer enough.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah would be \u201ca catastrophe\u201d, the UN Secretary-General says. But to David Kamari, who lives under near-daily fire on the Israeli side of the border, it would be a solution. Last month, a Hezbollah rocket fired from Lebanon landed in his front garden in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}