Netanyahu Vows ‘Severe’ Response to Deadly Rocket Attack Tied to Hezbollah

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Netanyahu Vows ‘Severe’ Response to Deadly Rocket ******* Tied to Hezbollah

******* and Hezbollah have since fired thousands of missiles across the border, wrecking towns, ******** hundreds, displacing tens of thousands on both sides of the lines and leading each to threaten the other with a ground invasion. The strike on Majdal Shams was the deadliest ******* on civilians in ********-controlled territory since the ****** ******** in October.

******** analysts said Hezbollah was most likely aiming at a nearby army base on Mount Hermon and did not intentionally target the village. But the group’s use of inaccurate rockets led to the kind of civilian bloodshed that could ignite a full-blown war, they said, even as ******* continues to wage a devastating military offensive against ****** in the Gaza Strip.

Since the rocket strike on Majdal Shams, Western diplomats have been scrambling to try to defuse tensions between ******* and Hezbollah.

On Monday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, speaking by phone with President Isaac Herzog of *******, reaffirmed the ******* States’ “ironclad commitment” to *******’s security, according to a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller.

But Mr. Blinken also emphasized “the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict and discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution” with Hezbollah, Mr. Miller said.

John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, expressed confidence on Monday that a wider war between ******* and Hezbollah could be avoided.

“******* has a right to defend itself — no nation should have to live with this kind of threat,” he told reporters in Washington. At the same time, Mr. Kirby said, “we believe that there is still time and space for a diplomatic solution.” He added, “Nobody wants a broader war, and I’m confident we’ll be able to avoid such an outcome.”

Ehud Yaari, an *******-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said ******* needed to respond to meet the expectations of the ********* Druse community and ******** public opinion in general to not show weakness to the ******.

The ******** response would most likely be carefully focused in the hope of preventing a prolonged escalation, Mr. Yaari added. Options for a response could include targeting more senior Hezbollah figures or some of the group’s more valuable military assets.

One problem, he said, was that Hezbollah had already gone into “emergency mode” and had evacuated facilities that it considered vulnerable in Lebanon and Syria.

There have been continued attacks across the border since the strike on Majdal Shams, but they seem to have fallen within the limits of the ****-for-tat strikes of the past few months. The ******** military said overnight that its aerial defense systems had intercepted a pilotless aircraft that crossed from Lebanon into northwestern *******.

On Monday morning, a drone strike on a vehicle in southern Lebanon ******* two people and injured three others, including a child, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. At least two Lebanese towns were also hit overnight by ******** airstrikes, the agency reported.

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