The post appeared after testimonies emerged from flotilla personnel arriving from Europe. Hairston wrote, "Just as murderers and rapists possess a right to exist in prison, so the Israeli leadership deserves long lives behind bars." She continued, "The testimonies of the detainees from the flotilla are horrifying. The genocide state in full display – beatings, being held kneeling with hands cuffed behind the back for hours, denial of medical treatment, degrading treatment, and threats. Not to mention that abducting the people from the flotilla in international waters constitutes a violation of international maritime law."

Tel-Hai College issued a response, "The lecturer's serious statements were written on her personal account and do not represent the position of Tel-Hai Academic College as an academic institution. Tel-Hai Academic College stands proudly with Israeli Air Force soldiers and security forces and thanks them for their dedication and protection of the State of Israel and its citizens. Many of our students served in the reserves during the past two years. During this period, as we return with excitement to our northern campuses after more than two years, the opening of the academic year represents the resilience of the region and Tel-Hai's deep commitment to the Galilee community and Israeli society."

Professors for a Strong Israel issued a statement, "Israeli academia must not function as a sanctuary for lecturers who slander the State of Israel. Following Dr. Ilana Hairston's statements from Tel-Hai College, comparing the State of Israel to the Third Reich, Professors for a Strong Israel warns that this represents a serious and persistent phenomenon of lecturers in higher education institutions who abuse freedom of expression to damage the State of Israel and Israeli Air Force soldiers."

Shachar Yifrach, chairman of the Tel-Hai Student Union, stated, "Dr. Ilana Hairston's post crosses a red line both clearly and publicly. The union vigorously condemns these statements. Comparing the State of Israel to the Third Reich is a perilous comparison that damages Holocaust memory and harms reserve soldiers, including our students who risked their lives for the state. The union adopted the IHRA definition against antisemitism last year, and we invite the college and other institutions nationwide to adopt the definition as we have."

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Video: The incident in northern Israel / Credit: Israel Police

In May, Israel Police's 100 hotline received an urgent call reporting a Tesla crashing into several parked cars in Yanuh-Jat in northern Israel with a man menacing bystanders with a knife. When police arrived, they discovered that the suspect, wielding a knife, had entered the village moments earlier and threatened multiple individuals, yelling, "I'm committing suicide with you, I'll slaughter you one by one." He proceeded to puncture the tires of a parked car outside residential homes.

The suspect then returned to his Tesla, reversed for several dozen meters, and sped toward a group of people nearby. As they scattered to safety, he smashed into two vehicles parked along the road. After initially escaping, he was arrested later that night for interrogation. An indictment has been filed, accompanied by a request to hold him in custody until legal proceedings conclude.

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The IDF said Wednesday that soldiers killed an armed man suspected of entering the country from Lebanon and blowing up a car, raising the risk of renewed tensions with Hezbollah.

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The security situation in Israel prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut in half his planned two-day visit to Germany this week, his office said. The incident unnerved Israelis, who questioned on social media and elsewhere how someone with explosives could travel dozens of kilometers inside Israel and set off a roadside bomb before being detected.

The army said soldiers stopped a car carrying the bombing suspect at a checkpoint Monday shortly after a roadside explosion seriously injured a driver near Megiddo Junction in the country's north. The suspect was wearing a suicide vest and had a rifle and a gun when he was stopped near the border with Lebanon. The army said it shot and killed the man and is questioning the driver.

The army said the device exploded at a 90-degree angle, which is unusual for the area. That led officials to suspect that the man infiltrated from Lebanon and may have been linked to Lebanon's terrorist Hezbollah group.

The army said it did not release the details of the incident for two days because it was trying to determine the suspect's identity, which it did not release. Netanyahu received a briefing on the incident Wednesday, which his office said led him to shorten his trip to Germany. The trip also was delayed, Israeli media reported, by negotiations over a proposal to overhaul Israel's judicial system, which has prompted massive protests.

A Hezbollah spokesman in Beirut did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. But in a speech last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Israel was growing weaker. "There is no security, there is no stability and there are no guarantees of the future," he said.

Israel and Hezbollah are bitter enemies that fought a monthlong war in the summer of 2006. Israel considers the Iran-backed Shiite terror group its most serious immediate threat, estimating that Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.

Israel's northern border with Lebanon has remained quiet but tense since the 2006 war.

But Israel discovered four years ago what it said was a network of tunnels built by Hezbollah along the border. Israel also frequently attacks targets in Syria, saying they are Iranian weapons deliveries headed to Hezbollah.

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Iran, unlike Israel, didn't stop what it was doing. Despite its domestic economic crisis, the displeasure of Russia and Syria, and the military blows it has sustained, Iran is persistent. This gives up plenty to consider about the chances of convincing Iran to abandon its scheme to settle down in the region between Iraq and Lebanon. In short: that would be too big a task for Israel. Without a deal with world powers, there is almost no chance Iran will be deterred.

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But Israel can definitely take action, and intends to do so. Anyone who doesn't want an upgraded version of Hezbollah in Syria must act before the steaming kettle becomes a steam engine equipped with advanced precision weapons. The IDF has been busy with this challenge for the past few years, and to judge by Defense Minister Naftali Bennett's and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi's comments this week while inspecting an IDF drill on the Golan Heights – which was also designed to send a clear message that Israel is prepared for war – it will keep the country busy for the foreseeable future.

An Iranian retaliation is on the way

Some will, of course, tie all this to the Israeli elections and claim that it's all a political maneuver. That's incorrect. Anyone familiar with the details, in the coalition or the opposition, knows that this is not the kind of thing that can be put aside until after an election. Israel is supplying only a partial response anyway, and defense officials said this week that discussion about the situation should focus on the need for more action, including higher-risk operations.

The meaning is clear: Israel must risk an Iranian retaliation. Thus far, Iran has demonstrated low-level retaliation to Israeli actions, all of which were thwarted or disrupted. But that can't go on forever. The attack on Saudi Arabia shows that Iran has the capacity to strike a painful blow. True, Israel isn't Saudi Arabia, and has a different level of deterrence for Tehran, but anyone thinking that commander of Iran's elite Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani will sit by as Israel continues to operate is wrong. There will be a response.

This scenario brings with it an increased likelihood of a fighting on the northern border, if not necessarily a war. We are talking about days of battles that could develop following an Israeli strike and an ensuing Iranian response. They could end as an isolated incident, or devolve into a wider-scale escalation.

This scenario will also probably be a pillar of Military Intelligence's annual situation assessment for 2020, which is due to be presented to the nation's leaders next month and will include more than a few questions, including: What will take place between Iran and the US on the matter of Iran's nuclear program and the US sanctions; what role Russia will play; will Persian Gulf states stay hostile to Iran or try to draw closer to Tehran in an attempt to protect themselves; what will happen with the popular protests that have erupted in Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran; and – of particular importance to Israel – will the Gaza Strip lean toward a long-term ceasefire deal or opt for escalation, and when and if the Palestinian Authority will hold elections and whether PA President Mahmoud Abbas will survive the year. Also, how long and to what extent will Israel's peace treaty with Jordan remain in place?

Direct contact with Putin

Many of the questions mentioned above are raised in a forecast for 2020 published this week by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. The institute, under lead researcher Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, points out another major challenge that Israel might face if Iran decides to continue enriching uranium to build a nuclear bomb. That would require Israel to prepare itself to take independent military action – something more likely in the second half of the year – without knowing if and to what extent the US will provide backing.

At the same time, Israel must prepare itself for the opposite scenario: that there will be a rapprochement between Iran and the US and the nuclear talks will resume. JISS researchers call that possibility "problematic" and warn that Israel would have to "ensure that full coordination with decision-makers in the US remains in place for everything having to do with the demands that will be placed on Iran."

In the meantime, Iran's economic distress is expected to worsen, and the protests there to expand. The political struggle between the conservatives and the pro-reform forces in Iran is also expected to increase in intensity ahead of Iran's parliamentary elections, which are scheduled to take place this February. The authors of the document expect that if the Iranian economic crisis continues and the country does not resume negotiations, it will continue to launch "provocations" through the IRGC and the Quds Force, which could enflame the Israel-Iran situation in Syria and turn it into a much bigger conflict.

If that came to pass, it wouldn't be particularly convenient for either Syria or Hezbollah. The JISS predictions for 2020 indicate a trend of increasing stability in Syria, which is at the tail end of a seven-year war and currently reestablishing an effective central government, compared to Lebanon, which is seeing growing instability that could strengthen Hezbollah but could also put a check on its freedom of military action.

In a worst-case scenario, Israel would have to prepare for a pre-emptive war against Hezbollah, but there are more likely scenarios – first of which is the possibility that Russia will take action to limit Israel's operational freedom in Syria. To prevent that from happening, Israel will have to maintain open lines of communication with Moscow in general and Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular, a complex task.

Most of these issue are already in play, especially the ones that deal with operations in the north. Israel has no choice but to act, but it must do so with its eyes open and while acknowledging reality, including the dangers it presents. Most importantly, it must cut back on the talk, particularly during the election campaign, a time when even the most vital matters can be seen as political games.

When the defense minister was speaking this week about how Syria would turn into "Iran's Vietnam," he was comparing Iran and its satellites to the US in the war in southeast Asia. Washington might not care for that comparison, but that's not the most important point – the Vietnam War was tough on the Vietnamese. They might have won, but they paid a heavy price, and that was fighting for their own land. It's not certain that Israel wants to make Syria into its "own" land and fight for it and in it. Next year, Israel will have to do all it can to keep fighting that battle while maintaining quiet on the northern front.

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"The man in the bunker will give a lot more speeches," the official said, referring to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

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"I don't care about that, as long as we [Israel] can continue to achieve our goals," the official added.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri understands that his country is at risk of Nasrallah continues provoking Israel, the official said.

When asked if he thought that Hezbollah would consider Sunday's missile attack a sufficient response to last week's drone strikes, which took out major Hezbollah targets and embarrassed Nasrallah, the official said, "We are preparing for every scenario. If he keeps this up, he knows what awaits him."

The official explained that Israel's security and defense priorities, as laid out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; preventing Hezbollah from obtaining precision missiles; and preventing Iran from further entrenching itself in the region – including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere.

"We are making diplomatic and operational efforts in a number of fields and areas to prevent these three things. Each one has a detailed action plan. We are carrying out a lot of actions. You only see the very tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of covert actions by the IDF and the Mossad, as well as diplomatic measures being taken to address these three goals," the official said.

"We are working with determination combined with responsibility. We don't act on a shim – it's part of a complete strategy. We have goals we want to achieve," he said.

Addressing recent developments on the northern border, the official said that Israel was handling developments there "with caution, even in the past few days."

"In the past few days, we were surrounded on multiple fronts. We needed to take action on a few different fronts within a 24-hour period. We operated with precision, just like we planned to. If we hadn't taken those actions, we could have wound up fighting a war we don't need," the official said.

As part of Sunday's clash with Hezbollah, the IDF reportedly staged an evacuation to make Hezbollah think that Israeli soldiers had been wounded in the attack. In fact, there were no wounded among soldiers or civilians.

"I'm surprised at the public discourse about [the fake evacuation]. Commanders in the field are instructed to use deception when fighting. I'm not going to discuss whether there was or was not a 'fake-out.' We do everything possible to prevent casualties. If the army uses deceptive tactics, that's good. We do everything we can to prevent casualties. In Israel, it's impossible to hide casualties, when there are any," the official said.

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Anyone who nevertheless managed to see beyond the ongoing, mostly operative and tactical activity, couldn't miss the strategic significance of the events that have taken place here these past few days. They marked the peak of a process that has been in the works for years and could wind up changing the face of the Middle East. Israel insisted, and not for the first time, on its own red lines, and made it clear that it was prepared to take far-reaching risks now to avoid finding itself facing threats that it cannot live with in the future.

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That's true throughout the entire region, from Iran to Lebanon, including Syria and Iraq. Not all the reports are always accurate, but the big picture is clear. It is made up of lots of small details, from missiles and rockets to drones and Shiite militia fighters. All these make up a battle in which Israel is fighting the "Big Satan" (Iran) and the "Little Satan," (Hezbollah), as well as plenty of other threats.

"These days are critical to shaping the future of the region," a security official who is familiar with all the details said this week.

"For one brief moment, everything came together here: Iran's efforts to entrench itself in the area; Hezbollah's precision missile project; the far-reaching effects of American sanctions on the Iranian economy and as a result of that on its protégées; and Israel's open and secret activity," the official said.

This activity, which has been underway in various forms for years, used to be conditional on one thing – not to get dragged into a full-scale war. It has been so successful that for extended periods of time, Israel managed to avoid responses from the other side. This week, Israel appears to have taken its "intra-war activity" one step further, to a point where it could lead to a major escalation and possibly even an actual war. Most likely, this won't happen, but still, anyone who took part in one of the many defense and security meetings held this week could understand the potential ramifications of the actions undertaken, as well as the heavy price Israel would have paid for not taking them.

Nasrallah is losing his mind

The two most dramatic events this week – killing Shiite militia operatives using drones in Syria and using drones to attack Hezbollah's precision missile project in Lebanon, which was attributed to Israel – happened only a few hours apart on Saturday night, but were unrelated. But both were characterized by high-quality intelligence capabilities, which were translated into operations using different methods.

In general, intelligence is the name of the game. One cannot but wonder at the depth of Israel's intelligence coverage (or the other side's ability to stage incursions). The precision missile project, for example, was being kept heavily under wraps by Hezbollah – only a few were involved, and even fewer in its critical aspects. The strike on those facilities – just like the tunnel that the organization dug into Israeli territory and was discovered and destroyed at the start of this year – not only removes one of Hezbollah's major, unique capabilities – it also embarrassed it, in front of its own people and its partners in Lebanon and beyond.

That embarrassment, which reached unusual levels this week, led Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to make a hysterical speech on Sunday. Looking back, it's doubtful that Nasrallah would use the same phrasing again; he made so many promises that he is now forced to choose whether to come out as a liar who doesn't keep his commitments to make Israel pay, or "be a man" and put his entire organization, as well as Lebanon as a whole, at risk in a war that he doesn't want.

Based on Hezbollah's past decision-making, it is likely that the organization has spent the past several days feverishly talking about what to do. Supposedly, Nasrallah is seeking open retaliation – an eye for an eye for the deaths of two Shiite militia members in the drone attack on the Syrian Golan Heights. It could come in the form of an anti-tank missile at IDF forces, like the one that killed two Givati soldiers on Mount Dov in January 2015, or possibly sniper fire like what claimed the lives of two other IDF soldiers at the Nurit outpost in July 2014, or a bomb. But one move is unlikely – an abduction. In 2006, Israel showed Nasrallah that abducting its people means war, and he is trying to avoid war.

But the real response Nasrallah wants to dish out is not for the events in Syria, but for what took place in secret, in Beirut. According to foreign media reports, the fact that Israel took action in the heart of the Dahiyeh neighborhood for the first time since 2006 caused Nasrallah to lose his mind. It wasn't just the loss of a strategic asset, it's that now he fears that Israel is unilaterally changing the balance of mutual deterrence that Israel and Hezbollah have so carefully maintained.

Nasrallah, like Lebanon itself, will find it hard to accept that change. In the past, he has declared that any attack in Beirut would lead to an attack on Tel Aviv, but it's unlikely he'll go so far. He might be considering shooting some projectile weapon or another into Israel, but only to send a signal. Hezbollah, all experts agree, does not want a war.

It's disinclination to fight a war with Israel stems not only from the heavy price that the organization paid fighting in Syria but also because it is afraid to bring disaster on Lebanon that would extend beyond the fighting itself. In other words, Nasrallah is afraid of turning from Lebanon's defender to its destroyer.

A knockout for Israel

Hats are off to Iran for its determination to be active in the area. Despite all the blows they have taken, the Iranians keep on keeping on. After its smuggling of precision missiles to Lebanon was thwarted through hundreds of airstrikes attributed to Israel, they moved on to a project that would allow Hezbollah to modify its existing missiles, and now they are trying to manufacture missiles in Lebanon. After the series of strikes attributed to Israel disrupted the air smuggling route used for weapons, the Iranians began using a land corridor that is long and dangerous, passing through Iraq. After their attempts to build permanent bases for their militias in Syria were torpedoed, they undertook covert actions, under the radar of the Russians and the Syrians. After they failed to attack Israel from Syria, they are now working on setting up other options that will allow them to stage actions from Iraq.

If a stranger were to judge, they might conclude that Israel has won the battle in a knockout. It's not that there are no weapons in Lebanon or in the hands of militias in Syria, but the grandiose plans of the commander of Iran's Quds Force Qassem Soleimani have fallen far short of being fully implemented. Vast amounts of effort, money, operatives, weapons, and technology have gone up in smoke. And still, in Iran, Soleimani is a hero, a man with hands of gold. He sells himself to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the only one to stand up to Israel without blinking. But Iran has attacked Israel four times in the past 18 months – in February and May 2018, and in January and August of this year – and all the attacks were failures.

The war between Israel and Iran is not the result of any Iranian decision – it was Israel who made the call. It was former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. (ret.) Gadi Eizenkot who was mostly responsible for making the Quds Force a major target. His successor, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, has taken the fight forward, and not only raised the risk threshold, but also expanded the area of and character of Israel's actions. The Mossad under director Yossi Cohen is a key partner; Cohen, like Kochavi and Eizenkot, believes that if Israel wants to strike Iran, it must look Tehran in the eyes, take a chance, and act.

The terrorist attack that was thwarted on Saturday was the next stage of that policy. For some time, Israel had been tracking the Shiite operatives who wanted to launch the explosives-laden drones. They belong to the Imam Hossein Division, a Shiite militia that is also known as the International Brigade because its members come from many different nations who were looking for a new home after fighting the radical Sunni Islamic State.

The decision to have these militia members carry out a terrorist attack came after the strikes that Israel was reported to have carried out against Iranian interests in Iraq. Soleimeni was looking for a rapid response, and the formula seemed to work: Israel, according to foreign reports, used drones in an attack, and it would be attacked in the same manner.

Tehran might be weighing the possibility of an attack against an Israeli or Jewish target abroad. Some Israeli embassies and consulates are on a higher level of alert, but it looks like Iran has chosen not to go that route because it would mix it up not only with Israel but with other countries as well. Terrorism is not seen as a legitimate tool, and Iran probably doesn't want to undermine its strategic interest of throwing off the American sanctions, especially when it's possible that US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might be about to meet.

The drones themselves came from Iran. The operatives, who were trained to fly them in Iran, were Lebanese, former Hezbollah members who were living in Syria. Last Thursday, they tried to launch two drones on the slopes of the Syrian Golan, but the IDF intercepted them. The operatives returned to the structure in the village of Aqraba that they had used to organize and store weapons. On Saturday, Israel attacked that building.

That particular attack was thwarted, but Soleimani's motivation is still sky-high. He will act again, no matter who stands in his way – not even Russia, which this week was embarrassed to find that Iran and its proxies were operating within an 80-kilometer (50-mile) zone that Moscow promised would remain free from terrorist activity. Russia was informed of this via various diplomatic conduits and warned that if it did not take action to restrain the Iranians, they could drag the entire region into a war that would damage Russia's interests in the ongoing quiet that would allow Syria to be rehabilitated. The same messages also went out to Syria and Lebanon. Israel was operating in their territory this week, but both kept quiet. The Syrian government said nothing about yet another Iranian attempt to open up a terror front against Israel from within its border, and the Lebanese government said nothing about Hezbollah trying to build a precision missile factory on its territory either.

This reality demands that Israel change its tactics, and not only when it comes to security and defense. A central aspect of its current activity is to make Syria and Lebanon take responsibility for what is happening inside their borders, whether it means confronting Iran (in the case of Syria) or Hezbollah (in the case of Lebanon) and laying down firm red lines. There is very little chance of this happening. Iran doesn't control Syria, but does what it wants there, and Hezbollah does de facto control Lebanon. Anyone who dares raise their head will find it shot off.

A question of how and when

In the past few days, the IDF has been on high alert. It still isn't beefing up its forces, the idea is to play down its signature moves and not offer Hezbollah any available targets, but preparations have taken on a very different character. Some units and equipment that had been moved to Judea and Samaria on Friday to help locate the killers of Rina Shnerb, were redeployed to the North to handle the terrorist attack that Hezbollah was planning. It's complicated management of resources, not only because it's taking place at the end of August when the IDF is supposed to be at a standstill, but because the Gaza Strip – with its own endless problems – is always simmering away in the background. This week, it became clearer that Hamas does not want a military confrontation – not only has it not been involved in any of the recent terrorist attacks, it even took action against those who did perpetrate them and paid a heavy price when three of its policemen were killed in an attack by Salafi terrorists in Gaza.

For now, Israel is allowing Hamas to run things in Gaza. Like in the North, this demands strong defenses to avoid suffering an attack that would demand a change in policy and an unwanted war. The main challenge is to maintain those defenses in the face of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which unlike Hamas – wants quiet – seeks chaos, a battle, and outright war, whether because that's what its Iranian patron wants, or because it is unfettered by concerns about the ongoing governance of Gaza.

Many officials in Israel have long been campaigning for Israel to handle the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Prominent among them is the head of the Shin Bet security agency Nadav Argaman, who for over a year has been pointing out the growing threat the organization presents.

After the last round of escalation in the violence between Israel and Hamas in May of this year, Hamas reined in the PIJ, but they seem to have loosened the screws, and the group is back to its old tricks. At some point, Israel will have to take action against the PIJ, but for now, Israel wants to calm things on the southern front so that it can focus on the North. To residents of the western Negev, that doubtlessly seems unfair – no one would want to trade places with the participants of a festival in Sderot that is interrupted by a Color Red alert, or with the people taking a nighttime dip in the pool at Moshav Netiv Ha'asara, who had to run for shelter from incoming rockets. But in this case, the current situation in the North meets two basic criteria for priority – it is more urgent and more important.

The northern front is urgent because the threat of a Hezbollah response is immediate. In the past, the group took a few days from the time it was attacked to the time it would respond, meaning we're right in the window of time for the promised retaliation. It's likely that any delay in that response will be the result of either the IDF making successful preparations to counter it; or Hezbollah's problem that too "successful" an attack could prompt Israel to respond even more harshly, leading to war. But there will certainly be a response.

The northern front is more important because of the type of threat that was eradicated. Hezbollah has 150,000 missiles and rockets that can do serious damage to Israel, but precision missiles are something completely different: Hezbollah could use them to attack any point in Israel. It could do more than blanket-bomb the country – it could wipe out specific targets, including key defense infrastructure and facilities. Israel could either mortgage itself to pay for defense systems that would never be sufficient or take a risk of suffering unprecedented damage.

From that perspective, the strikes attributed to Israel on a facility designed to allow Hezbollah to manufacture precision missiles in Lebanon was a strategic event on the scale of an attack on an Iranian nuclear facility. It cannot be evaluated in terms of the here and now; but rather by looking ahead for the long term. If it hadn't been done, people here would be asking 20 years from now, and rightly, who was so irresponsible as to allow a new, dangerous version of Hezbollah to set up camp in the Golan Heights.

The decision was made based on realistic considerations, and despite the risks. One might wonder what would have happened if similar steps had been taken a decade ago or more to prevent Hezbollah from arming itself with its current stock of rockets and missiles. But the challenge now is to prevent such mistakes from happening again while minimizing the risk of a full-scale war while also being willing to pay the price should such a war erupt.

For now, it seems that Israel is taking the right approach: the other side is now faced with a dilemma. Nasrallah is being forced to take responsibility for an incident in Syria in which he was uninvolved so that he can avenge what he could not admit happened in Lebanon. Too weak a response on his part could unleash Israel for more actions in Lebanon, while too harsh a response could lead Israel to an even harsher retaliation, which might include Lebanese infrastructure and spark an exchange of blows that will lead to a war that Hezbollah doesn't want.

This equation will lie heavy on our heads for the next few days until Hezbollah makes its move. But it will still exist after the response. The northern front is closer to real escalation than it has been since 2006, but assuming that it doesn't develop into a war that upsets everything, nothing fundamental will change. Iran and Hezbollah will continue their constant attempts to undermine the balance of power with Israel, and Israel will continue to take action, both openly and in secret, on the axis between Beirut and Tehran, to remove ever-bigger threats.

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According to the Syrian state news agency's report, the country's air-defense systems were activated against "hostile missiles" launched from the Israeli Golan Heights and Israeli aircraft west of Damascus. In addition, According to the report, two further explosions were heard around 1:00 a.m., one in the Quneitra area and a second in Tal al-Hara, adjacent to Quneitra.

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Syria accused Israel of the strikes but Israel neither confirmed nor denied the reports. Israel is keeping close tabs on developments in Syria after reports earlier this week said that Druze Hezbollah operative Mashhour Zidan, had been assassinated in Quneitra.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the attack was directed, among other targets, against weapons storage sites used by Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian militias in Syria's and housing long-range missiles and other weaponry. It was further reported that one of the missiles had exploded inside a base in western Damascus where large forces of pro-Iranian militias in Syria were stationed.

The zone has been a target of Israeli raids against Tehran-backed militias which have become entrenched in southern Syria and the Golan Heights near the border with Israel.

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