Tensions ratchet up a tad

Sunday was hardly a day  of rest  in the Mideast… both Israel and Hezbollah rained heavy rocket fire on each other. Thankfully, since the exchange there seemingly has been no escalation.

Israel and Hezbollah exchanged their heaviest fire in years yesterday as Israeli fighter jets struck thousands of missile launchers in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah sent hundreds of rockets and drones into Israel.

Three Hezbollah-aligned fighters were killed in Lebanon during Israel’s attack and one Israeli Navy officer died. But the “heavy firepower and lack of civilian casualties might allow both sides to claim a sort of victory and step back” from a “long-feared war,” The Associated Press said. Hezbollah wants “to say that we’ve registered a response,” Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said to The New York Times, “and now move on from this phase of anticipation of a wider escalation.”The Week

Seems a very symbolic exchange for now…like a schoolyard fight where no one REALLY wants to go to the principal’s office. I suspect the three Hezbollah folks might disagree.

There was an escalation in Syria, however.

A drone strike in northwestern Syria on Friday killed a Saudi militant from an al-Qaida-linked group as he was riding on a motorcycle, the U.S. military and a war monitor said.

The strike in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of the opposition-held Idlib province was carried out by a U.S.-led coalition that was established years ago to fight the militant Islamic State group.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that its forces had killed Abu Abdul Rahman Makki, a senior leader in the group Horas al-Din, or “Guardians of Religion,” in a “kinetic strike.” It said Makki was “responsible for overseeing terrorist operations from Syria.” Military Times

Wonder if he remembered to wear his helmet?  Get some, boys.

H/t to Jeff for the latter.

Category: Israel