Hezbollah's long war comes out of the shadows

The rocket attack that followed Israeli airstrikes and mosque raids failed to provoke all-out war - but it must surely be inevitable

- Martin Chulov

The groves of southern Lebanon had been quiet for nearly 17 years. But as farmers tended to orange trees and banana crops last Thursday, rocket men lurked among them, readying the biggest barrage fired into Israel since the war of 2006 and taking a startled region to the precipice of another conflict that leaders on both sides of the border fear will be worse than all before them.

In Beirut and Tel Aviv, an escalation seemed imminent. But as a troubling afternoon wore on, the apocalyptic showdown between Hezbollah and Israel that had been widely predicted started to fizzle. Rhetoric was of measured responses. Israel was content to blame Palestinian groups and put a distance between them and Hezbollah. War could wait for now.

But as two mortal foes continue to stalk each other across the battlefields of the Middle East, fighting shadow wars in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and as far away as Yemen, the risk of even seemingly measured provocations spiralling out of control is perhaps greater than ever. The backdrop to last Thursday's flare-up was a mix of issues that was even more potent than usual.

Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem during Ramadan had played poorly across the region, as had military action in the West Bank that had claimed an unusually high number of casualties. A far-right Israeli government, beholden to ultra-nationalists and facing sustained dissent at home, had given added impetus to foes in Iran and their proxies in Lebanon to make their presence felt.