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News Analysis: Full-blown Israeli-Hezbollah confrontation currently unlikely

Xinhua, January 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Syrian analysts doubted the possibility of a full-fledged war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah over the recent border attacks due to several reasons.

"Despite the tense and highly volatile situation, especially as Israel continues attacking Syria and interfering in its internal affairs, I don't think there will be a full-blown war now," Hmaidi Abdullah, a Syrian political researcher told Xinhua Thursday.

He said that Hezbollah's attack Wednesday on an Israeli military convoy in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon, leaving two Israeli soldiers killed and seven others wounded, was a message to Israel and Western countries that "crossing red lines will evoke retaliation."

Hezbollah aired this statement on its official station, al-Manar TV, that "at 11:25 (Wednesday morning) the Qunaitera Martyrs unit targeted with missile weapons an Israeli military convoy composed of several vehicles."

Abdullah discounted the possibility of war, mainly because Israel was recently engaged in skirmishes on the Gaza Strip and its attack disturbed international opinion over the death of 2,000 Palestinians.

"Israel came out of the Gaza battle as drained as the Palestinians, though for different reasons," he said, noting that reliving a similar scenario within the span of a year without international cover would advance the region towards a war that would be difficult to extinguish.

Abdullah added that the international community, led by the United States, currently has other priorities, mainly the Iranian nuclear program and discussions with Iran.

He said Western powers and Iran exerted tremendous efforts to begin negotiations, meaning they will not support, nor sanction, an Israeli war against Hezbollah, owing to their close relations with Iran.

"Israel is not interested in war, because I believe Israel's security and safety of its peoples' lives would dim any other Israeli choices," he said, noting that a war would equally involve Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and that is currently highly unlikely. Endit