Despite the IDF's cautious assessments that Palestinian factions in south Lebanon fired the rockets at Kiryat Shmona and northern Galilee on Wednesday, only Hezbollah, directly guided by its patron in Tehran, can greenlight such an act.
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It was the fifth rocket salvo from Lebanon in the two months since the end of Operation Guardian of the Walls in the Gaza Strip. The backdrop to the rocket fire is the recent events in the maritime arena in the Persian Gulf, but also the threats issued by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to the ayatollah regime, and the inauguration of Iran's new, extremist president, Ebrahim Raisi, also known as the "butcher of Tehran."
In light of these developments, attributing the rocket attack to the Palestinian factions collaborating with Hezbollah and essentially functioning as its subcontractors would simply be turning a blind eye. It would be a willful disregard of the clear message emanating from Tehran, whereby a harsh Israeli response to the attack on the tanker in the Gulf of Oman, will be met by an even harsher response from Iran – possibly executed by Hezbollah and its subcontractors in south Lebanon, which could turn northern Israel into one giant target range.
Another factor is that the Palestinian factions in Lebanon don't act in broad daylight, rather under the cover of darkness, and from locations relatively distant from the border with Israel. This time, the rocket fire was carried out from an area close to the border under Hezbollah's complete control.
In other words, all the signs and fingerprints point to Hezbollah and Iran being behind the rocket fire, even if it was a Palestinian group in south Lebanon pulling the actual trigger.
Just to refresh the memory for those who've forgotten, the Second Lebanon War also began with "trickles" of rocket fire from south Lebanon. Those rockets at that time were not met with an appropriate and significant response from Israel, up until reservist soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were killed and abducted.
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