Israel-Hezbollah step back from war, but for how long?

For weeks, Israel had been anticipating a major attack from Hezbollah in retaliation for its killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon at the end of July.

In the early hours of Sunday, that attack finally came – and Israel was apparently ready. The Israelis claim to have thwarted what could have been a large-scale Hezbollah assault. At the same time, Hezbollah also claimed success.

So, what can we make of the latest tit-for-tat between the two sides, and where does the region go from here?

Clearly, both Israel and Hezbollah have stepped back at this stage from any further action. Hezbollah has qualified this by saying this is only the first phase of its response to Shukr’s assassination, and that it reserves the right to strike further after evaluating the success of Sunday’s operation.

Israel claimed to have seen preparations for perhaps a thousand rockets to be launched across the border, and it preemptively sent around 100 aircraft into southern Lebanon and hit 270 targets, including rocket launchers. Hezbollah is believed to be capable of launching 3,000 missiles a day if a full-scale war were to break out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the operation as a success, but said it’s not the end of the story and Israel will strike further if need be.

Hezbollah denies Israel’s strikes did much damage, saying it merely fired into “empty valleys.”

At the same time, Hezbollah retaliated by sending a large number of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. These are not the biggest rockets in its arsenal – they have a limited range of up to 40 kilometers – so they can only hit targets in northern Israel. Hezbollah said the rockets were meant to make way for a wave of drones to go into Israel. One