Hezbollah and Israel could accidentally “trigger” a wider regional conflict despite ongoing attempts to avoid exacerbating tensions in the Middle East, a former Israeli intelligence operative warned.
The two sides have been engaged in low-intensity fighting since October when the Lebanon-based militant group declared its support for Hamas and said it would target Israeli forces engaged in bombing the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah has repeatedly targeted Israel's territory with missile strikes, which have been met with a consistent response from Tel Aviv but have not escalated further.
However, former officer Avi Melamed told the Daily Express there remains a considerable risk that the “growing crossfire” could accidentally result in a much bigger direct confrontation.
Mr. Melamed said: “Despite ever-growing international fears that Israel and Hezbollah are on the cusp of all-out war along Israel's northern borders, both sides have kept to their guiding lines in the ever-escalating exchange of crossfire.
“It seems that Hezbollah is aware that an attack on Haifa or an attack that claims significant Israeli civilian casualties will likely trigger a full-scale Israeli response and has thus targeted its strike on military targets as well as evacuated communities along Israel's northern border.
“Likewise, Israel has shown restraint in its targeting of specific Hezbollah commanders and infrastructure, with the understanding that every attack on Hezbollah's higher echelons will trigger a larger-scale Hezbollah response.”
However, Mr Melamed warned: “Despite both Israel and Hezbollah's efforts to mitigate the risk of an all-out war, the dangerous reality is that the growing crossfire could very well trigger the collision both seek to avoid.”
On Friday, Israel announced it will not join a trilateral effort to stem fighting with Hezbollah proposed by Emmanuel Macron.
President Macron said during this week's G7 meeting in Italy that France, the US and Israel had agreed to work jointly towards quelling tensions between Hezbollah and Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “As we fight a just war, defending our people, France has adopted hostile policies against Israel.”
Mr. Gallant's rejection of the French proposal was criticized by senior officials in Israel's Foreign Ministry in a rare public spat.
Officials said: “We disapprove of Minister of Defense Gallant's attacks on France.”
They said Paris had supported Israel in many ways over the course of the war — by assisting Israeli defenses against an Iranian missile attack in April, by sanctioning Hamas and Iran, and by fighting antisemitism domestically.