Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heightened military strikes over the August 25 weekend. While Israel carried out large scale ‘pre-emptive’ air strikes on southern Lebanon in response to what it claimed were preparations by Hezbollah to strike Israel, Hezbollah still went ahead and launched a barrage of rockets into northern Israel. 

The attacks left one dead in Israel and three dead in Lebanon, and raised fears of the conflict escalating into a wider regional war. But Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that their strikes on Israel had completed their retaliatory response to avenge the killing of their commander Fuad Shukr, and with Israel, too, indicating satisfaction with its strikes, tensions have reduced to a low simmer for the time being. 

How do we make sense of this tit-for-tat exchange? Can the asymmetric war that Iran and Hezbollah are waging against Israel help in moving the needle towards a ceasefire? And why has Israel launched a major military operation in the West Bank even as it’s bogged down in Gaza? 

Guest: Stanly Johny, The Hindu’s International Affairs Editor. 

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

Edited by Jude Francis Weston