Rocket fire from Lebanon: a second front for Israel?

Hezbollah denies firing three rockets Thursday. Israeli officials blame Al Qaeda militants.

from the January 9, 2009 edition

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If Hezbollah didn't fire the rockets, did it supply them? After decades of conflict, there is no shortage of Katyusha-style rockets in Lebanon. The identity of the perpetrators could indicate whether Hezbollah was aware of the rocket attack beforehand and possibly gave it tacit blessing. Some Palestinian militant groups, such as the PFLP-GC, are allies of Hezbollah and would be unlikely to launch an attack on Israel without at least obtaining prior approval from Hezbollah and Syria.

On the other hand, Al Qaeda-style Sunni groups, as Israeli officials note, are suspected of firing rockets into Israel in the past from southern Lebanon. Those militants have little regard for the Shiite Hezbollah and are more likely to act unilaterally.

Yet most analysts say that the rocket barrage does not presage the opening of a new front between Israel and Hezbollah. But there may be more rocket attacks.

"This is not surprising," says Timur Goksel, who for two decades served with the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, known as UNIFIL. "It's possible we will see more attacks like this in the days ahead. The Lebanese Army and UNIFIL will have their hands full."

So far, Hezbollah has restricted its support for its Palestinian ally Hamas to speeches and demonstrations in Beirut.

In June, Lebanon goes to the polls in what is expected to be a tense and closely fought parliamentary election. An electoral win for Hezbollah and its allies against the Western-backed parliamentary majority bloc will give it greater leverage to hold onto its weapons and continue the struggle against Israel. Triggering a potentially devastating fresh war with Israel for the sake of Hamas in Gaza will not be welcomed by its Shiite constituents, let alone other Lebanese, which is a compelling reason for Hezbollah to limit its actions.

But if Hamas looks to be facing defeat, spelling the end of anti-Israel resistance from Gaza and the West Bank, it is possible that Hezbollah will come to its assistance from Lebanon. "There is no way that Hezbollah can allow Hamas to be destroyed. Hezbollah would have to intervene," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on the Shiite group.

Instead of firing rockets into Israel, Hezbollah probably would tailor its actions against Israel to seek legitimacy in the eyes of Lebanese and world opinion. One possibility is to attempt to shoot down Israeli jets that breach Lebanese airspace on a nearly daily basis in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

The downing of an Israeli aircraft would be considered a "red line" by Israel. But Hezbollah could argue that its action was a legitimate defense of Lebanese sovereignty rather than an act of aggression against Israel, analysts say.

In Nahariya, Thursday afternoon, Chava Carmeli said it was a miracle that all 27 of the people who live in the three-story elder-care facility that she manages were downstairs in the dining room, about to eat breakfast, when the Katyusha rocket pierced through the roof at 7:40 a.m.

The rocket shattered walls, ceilings, windows, and pipes in most of the bedrooms upstairs before landing in the kitchen. There, plates of about-to-be-served hummus and labneh – a staple in Middle Eastern breakfasts – sat covered with shards of glass and flakes of plaster.

Now, the building sits with holes wide-open to the sky and is eerily empty of residents, who were soon evacuated to other senior-citizen homes in the area. "If they hadn't all come down to the dining room for breakfast, we would have lost tens of them," says Ms. Carmeli, still shaking from the experience and checking for updates on one of her residents, who was in surgery in a nearby hospital. "We thought that if there were another missile attack, the siren would warn us and we'd be able to move everyone into the shelters."

But the attack came without warning, something Israelis here came to rely on during the Lebanon war in 2006.

Despite that, Miriam Cohen, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives across the street, felt the familiar crash of the Katyusha while she was baking for the upcoming Sabbath. She knew exactly what she had to do. She turned the oven off, turned the radio on, and made for the shelter in the house they've been in for 50 years.

"I already don't run so fast," she explains about making her way to the shelter – a protected steel room inside their house. "We're already experts in this routine," she says with a wry smile. Then, her eyes pool with tears. "We don't see any hope that this will end."

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