War by proxy

Some ‘unknown group’ from Lebanon has fired rockets into Northern Israel according to the Jerusalem Post:

Two people were lightly wounded when terrorists in Lebanon fired three Katyusha rockets at the area of Nahariya in northern Israel on Thursday morning. The IDF returned fire.

(…)The IDF's Northern Command held consultations following the attack, saying that "Israel holds the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese armed forces responsible for preventing rocket fire into Israel." The army also said that Palestinian elements were interested in "dragging Lebanon into a war."

The army instructed citizens of the North to return to normalcy, saying that the attack was an isolated incident. According to Northern Command assessments, the salvo was probably fired by Palestinian terror groups and not by Hizbullah, but the possibility that Hizbullah instructed another group to fire at Israel could not be ruled out.
"Nothing happens in Lebanon without a green light from Hizbullah," a defense official said. "Even if it was a Palestinian group who fired the rockets, Hizbullah would have to at least have turned a blind eye to allow the rocket fire." Hizbullah denied involvement in the attack.

A Lebanese government official said the country was trying to determine who launched the rockets. The official also said Lebanon is committed to a UN-brokered truce that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

An Al Jazeera reporter with close ties to Hizbullah said there was no chance the rockets were fired by the Shi'ite terror group, because the rockets were of an outdated model that Hizbullah had not used for years. Channel 10 also quoted him as saying that had Hizbullah wisheded to open a second front on Israel's North it would have fired dozens of rockets and not only three.

A few points to emphasize here. It does not matter which official group fired the rockets, it doesn’t matter how old the rockets were because the bottom-line is the government of Lebanon in partnership with UNIFIL is responsible for maintianing UN Resolution 1701 which explicitly states there are to be no rocket attacks emminating from Lebanon against Israeli civilians. Nothing happens in Southern Lebanon without the explicit okay and approval of Hezbollah. Whatever ‘fraction’ fired the rockets had to get the rockets from somebody and the somebody who is in complete charge of weapons smuggling in southern Lebanon is Hezbollah.

No doubt Hezbollah is feeling rather smug today with their plausal denibility but they should remember why the Israelis launched Operation Litani River. What’s the old saying – those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat their mistakes? In any case, I cannot help but wonder if the Syrians are feeling as smug as Hezbollah obviously is today. (h/t Elder of Ziyon for this link)