Israel-Hezbollah Conflict
The 2006 conflict was sparked by a Hezbollah ambush on Israeli territory, which left three soldiers dead and two abducted. After the 34-day war was concluded, Nasrallah publicly admitted he’d misread Israel, saying he wouldn’t have ordered the capture of the Israeli soldiers had he known it would trigger full-blown war. “If I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.” He misunderstood Israel this time too, as the Hamas attacks made Israelis even less tolerant of the Hezbollah threat — their patience “dropped to nearly zero in the wake of the October 2023 attacks,” said Matthew Savill of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “The Israeli threshold for pain is higher” now than during the last clash, they’re willing to withstand more.
