Hezbollah mute over Israel’s aggressive campaign

As Israel continues to mount its most aggressive campaign against Hezbollah since the war in 2006, the group’s response remains strangely muted.

Around 250 rockets were reportedly fired into northern Israel yesterday, a tiny fraction of what Hezbollah is capable of.

The group has also so far refrained from using its larger and longer-range weapons.

It’s hardly the “open ended battle of reckoning” threatened on Sunday by Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem.

All of which begs the question of whether Hezbollah is unwilling or simply unable to unleash its larger arsenal.

An unnamed security official is quoted in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper saying that Israel has taken “a giant step forwards towards a different Middle East, one in which Hezbollah looks completely different”.

Israel certainly feels it has dealt Hezbollah a series of spectacular blows over the last week. The group’s leadership has been assassinated and its command and control capabilities severely compromised.

It may just lack the ability to mount an effective response.

Or, quite possibly, Hezbollah and its Iranian backers have decided to conserve its firepower in the hope of riding out the current crisis.

( BBC)