The latest attack by Hezbollah in northern Israel, Wednesday April 17, could be seen as a replica, in miniature, of that which Iran, its regional sponsor, carried out during the night from Saturday to Sunday, against Israeli territory. . But it has gone relatively unnoticed, as general attention is monopolized by hypotheses on the form that the Israeli military response could take after the Iranian strikes, likely to lead to an even greater reaction from Tehran.
The first to target Israeli territory, the Iranian attack, carried out in retaliation for the Israeli strike of 1er April on an Iranian consular building in Damascus – which caused the death of General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander for Syria and Lebanon of the Al-Quds Forces – is of a completely different register than that of Hezbollah along the border . However, both come from a common matrix, that of the war of attrition and at a distance in which Iran and Israel have been engaged since the attack by Hamas (supported by Tehran), on October 7, 2023, on the Israeli territory.
Its intensity, however, had not been anticipated by Israeli strategists. ” 1er April, the Israelis made a mistakeestimates a diplomatic source. They had not correctly assessed the reaction that would be triggered by the strike on Damascus, thinking that it would be a continuation of actions of this type undertaken over the past six months. »
The Iranian strike has its roots in the last decade, and its driving force in the post-October 7 context, when Israel – which feared, for a few days, a Hezbollah operation from Lebanon comparable to that of the Islamic movement from Gaza – engaged in a firefight with Hezbollah. In six months, the reactivation of this “northern front” caused the death of ten Israeli soldiers and eight civilians and 368 people in Lebanon, activists and civilians. An assessment which, in the context before the October 7, would undoubtedly have given rise to aftershocks, or even a form of escalation.
“Hit first”
At the same time, the Jewish state has increased strikes against Iranian interests in neighboring Syria. On these two grounds, Israel has developed its targeted operations against individuals or installations, on the basis of intelligence collected for years in view of a future war with Hezbollah that some officials in the security apparatus considered ” inevitable “. This focus made it possible to draw up very detailed target lists, which were already used before October 7, but sparingly.
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