After Israel-Hezbollah escalation, what next for Gaza cease-fire and Iran conflict?
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged their most intense cross-border fire in months on Sunday. What does this mean for Lebanon, Iran and the Hamas war?
The escalation that long felt inevitable arrived in a blaze of cross-border attacks over the weekend, but a Middle East on edge woke Monday having escaped all-out war — for now at least.
The intense exchange between Israel and Hezbollah followed weeks of threats that stoked fears of a wider regional conflict.
And on Sunday, Israel launched what it said were pre-emptive strikes on southern Lebanon after saying it had detected preparations for a “large-scale” attack by the Iran-backed militant group.
Soon after, Hezbollah aimed hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel and claimed to have hit a military intelligence base near Tel Aviv — revenge, it said, for the assassination of a senior commander last month in Beirut.
It was the heaviest fire the two sides have traded in 10 months of simmering conflict.
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