Israel and Hezbollah exchange artillery fire near Lebanon, is Hezbollah joining the war?

 

Smoke rises in Lebanon after the strikes. Reuters.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged artillery fire on the border with Lebanon raising fears that the Iran backed group could join the war with Hamas. Reuters. Hezbollah launched guided rockets and artillery at the Sheeba Farms area of northern Israel, a territory that is also claimed by Lebanon. Israel returned fire with artillery of their own and a drone strike destroyed a Hezbollah tent, which was quickly replaced. A second rocket attack from Hezbollah followed two hours later. Hezbollah said they are in direct contact with Hamas and celebrated their massive attack. 

My Comment:

This is, so far, a minor incident. A minor artillery exchange does not mean much, especially since it's unclear if anyone was killed or hurt on either side. Still the implications are clear, Israel is going to have to defend their northern border with Hezbollah as well as their fighters could pose a threat to their forces there as well as civilians. 

The elephant in the room is that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy and the implication is that Iran could possibly join the war alongside Hamas. Iran could launch large numbers of missiles and their Hezbollah minions could attack Israel directly. Iran is, of course, an ally to Russia and from there the whole thing could spiral into World War III. That's the theory at least and the worst case scenario. Will it happen? 

I do think that this attack was pretty haphazard and unplanned. Hamas achieved strategic surprise to the point that not even Hezbollah knew what they were going to do. This strikes me as a last minute, "we need to do something" kind of attack that didn't accomplish much of anything other than to show that Hezbollah supports Hamas. 

It does certainly complicate things for Israel. They took quite a bit of damage in their initial battles with Hamas and could face extreme resistance from the terror group as they invade the Gaza Strip. I also expect heavy armor losses due to drone strikes. There has already been a video released of one of Israel's Merkava tanks being destroyed and burned down after a bomb was dropped on it via drone. 

In short, Israel might have their hands full here and having to counter Hezbollah forces in the north will complicate things. Even if Hezbollah does nothing else for the rest of the war, Israel is going to have to deploy troops and armor to the north to counter any moves made by Hezbollah. They might have had to do it anyways, but now it's for sure. 

If anything does happen in the northern front, I expect it to take awhile for it to develop. Hezbollah was caught of guard by the Hamas offensive, just like everyone else. It will take some time to prepare their troops for battle and if Israel is extremely lucky the war could be over by then. I'm not expecting that, indeed I am expecting this war to be one of the bigger ones Israel has been involved with and that buys time for Hezbollah to get an attack ready. Perhaps this time Israel will be prepared for it...