Israeli airstrike in suburban Beirut unlikely to prompt escalation, observers say
Military says airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander
An Israeli airstrike in suburban Beirut that reportedly killed a Hezbollah commander may have caused outrage in Lebanon, but several outside observers suspect it's unlikely to spur any significant military escalation.
The strike hit a site in Beirut's Haret Hreik neighbourhood — an area with shops and residential apartments, but also where Hezbollah has political and security operations — on Tuesday evening. Fuad Shukr, a veteran Hezbollah commander, was the apparent target.
Dozens were injured in the strike and at least one person other than Shukr died, according to Lebanon's Health Minister Firas Abiad.
The Israeli military said its "targeted strike" sought to kill "the commander responsible" for a July 27 rocket attack that left 12 young people dead in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denied it had been involved in the attack.
Mark Schwartz, a retired U.S. army lieutenant-general who served as the U.S. security co-ordinator to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, expects "there will be a lot of rhetoric" following the strike, but does not believe it will motivate Iran-backed Hezbollah to expand the level of hostilities.
"There's no strategic benefit for Lebanese Hezbollah to further escalate the war," said Schwartz, who is an adjunct international defence researcher with the U.S.-based RAND Corporation think-tank, in a phone interview with CBC News.
Peter G. Bates, a retired Canadian foreign service officer, offered a similar assessment as to the possibility of escalation stemming from the Beirut strike.
"They want to keep it bubbling, but not boiling," Bates said, of the level of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
But he said there is "every likelihood that Hezbollah will respond in some way."
Tuesday's airstrike came months after an Israeli drone strike in January claimed the life of Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official. He was also killed in Beirut.
A handful of senior Hezbollah commanders have also been killed in strikes in other parts of Lebanon.
Earlier this month, Mohammad Naameh Nasser, the leader of a regional division in southern Lebanon, died in a strike near Tyre, Lebanon, closer to the Israeli border. And in June, Taleb Abdallah, a senior field commander, was killed near the south Lebanon village of Jouaiyya.
Escalation could 'get out of control'
Gershon Baskin, the Middle East director at the U.K.-based International Communities Organisation, agreed that the warring parties did not favour escalating the current level of conflict.
But he said future events could have unforeseen consequences.
"The problem is that once we begin to escalate, the escalation can get out of control," Baskin, a former hostage negotiator, told CBC's Power & Politics from Jerusalem.
Baskin pointed to the recent Golan Heights attack as an example.
"We saw a rocket hit a soccer field over the weekend … if another rocket falls somewhere in Lebanon — or somewhere else in Israel — and kills a lot of civilians, this is the kind of thing that can bring us to out-of-control escalation."
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank, told CBC's Canada Tonight that Hezbollah has ramped up attacks on Israel in recent months — and specifically since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.
And while these ongoing attacks have endured at "a relatively low level," Cancian, a former U.S. Marine colonel, said it's clear, as in the case of the Golan Heights rocket attack, that people eventually get hurt through these actions.
"Israel has a firm policy that if they get hurt, they're going to hurt you back, and that's what we've seen," said Cancian.
Within Israel, it appears public opinion is "very much divided" as to how to deal with Hezbollah, said Renan Levine, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
There are some "who think ... the only thing to do is to hit back until this stops," he said.
In Lebanon, Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said his government condemned the Israeli strike and intended to raise the matter with the United Nations.
He told Reuters the Beirut strike hadn't been expected and he hoped that any response from Hezbollah would not worsen the situation.
"Hopefully any response will be proportionate and will not be more than that, so that this wave of killing, hitting and shelling will stop."
Hezbollah official Ali Ammar, meanwhile, told Al-Manar TV that "the Israeli enemy has committed a great stupid act in size, timing and circumstances by targeting an entirely civilian area."
Ammar said Israel "will pay a price for this sooner or later."
Hours after the strike in Beirut, the Israel Defence Forces stated that Shukr, the Hezbollah commander, had been killed.
Hezbollah did not immediately confirm Shukr's death.
Schwartz said that Israel would have determined it had a high degree of confidence in who was responsible for the weekend attack.
Having made that conclusion, Schwartz said Israel would then "follow through" with a strike of this manner.
If Shukr somehow survived, Israel would have been likely to target him again in future, Schwartz said.
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With files from The Associated Press, CBC News and Reuters