Why is this not called a war yet?

How will we know when it is a "real war" between Israel and Hezbollah?

This morning, our Shavuot holiday, I was happily sitting at my crafts table doing some macrame and listening to a lecture by Einat Wilf on Zionism and anti-Zionism (to be written up at some later time). My mood was suddenly disrupted by red alerts flashing across the top of my smartphone screen along with the little buzz that accompanies them as long as the sirens are not in Haifa, where I live. (A siren in Haifa is much more than a little buzz on my smartphone — it is a sinister sound that vibrates horrifically in my veins and arteries as it fills the air around me.)

This map shows the extent of Hezbollah attacks against Israel from Lebanon after five minutes of continual alerts, with later reports telling us that this barrage included 90-100 missiles:

Anywhere else, this would be considered an act of war, no? Anywhere else, this would be considered a declaration of war, no?

Missiles have been shot at northern Israel daily for months and each one of those attacks would have been considered a declaration of war by any other country.

The attacks doubled in number between April and May, according to some reports, but the only data I have been able to find are: 334 missiles in January, 534 in February, 748 in March, and 744 in April.

Alma Research and Education Center provided data for number of attacks (missiles, anti-tank guided missiles and mines, and drones): 238 barrages in April and 325 in May. Attacks consist of variable numbers of missiles or drones. Pick a number from 1 to 100.

And in the first half of June, if we can go by what I have seen, this has perhaps doubled once more. After all, just today, there were the 90-100 missiles launched at 0900 hours to the 50 sites on the map above and then another 70-90 an hour later to the sites on this map:

So what will “real war” look like?

This was one of the questions asked of Avraham Levine of Alma Research and Education Center in an interview on Fox News on 8 June. He said that war would include:

1. Hitting Haifa, Zfat, Tiberias, and Tel Aviv on Hezbollah’s side; in other words, expanding the targets beyond the 5-km range from the Lebanese border. They are currently hitting mainly military targets — 55% military installations and the civilian areas aimed at have been mostly evacuated and are largely empty of civilians.

2. A ground operation on our side would indicate the start of full-scale war, invading southern Lebanon and not just hitting them with precise strikes from the air.

It is interesting to note that the first item above has already been breached since Levine’s interview four days ago. There have already been attacks against Haifa, Acco, Nahariya — some missiles on the way to Haifa were shot down over the Mediterranean Sea and did not trigger a siren so it seems these launchings do not count as targetting Haifa. The army said a recent siren in Haifa was a false alarm. Maybe it was.

But Tiberias and Tzfat were shot at this morning so perhaps that counts as a declaration of war? Let us see if the IDF regards it as such.

In the interview, Levine said that nobody in Israel wants “real” war against Hezbollah, but it may be the only way to make the north safe for residents to return home, to their schools, businesses, farms. The USA does not care about the nearly 100K residents displaced from the north, does not care about the missile barrages. The American interest here is to keep Iran out of joining the war and preventing a wider-spread regional conflict, something they fear will happen if this current “as-if” war becomes “real.”

Interestingly, for me, is that Levine claimed that Hezbollah will stop lobbing missiles and other war weapons against us if we reach an agreement with Hamas as they say they will. He did admit, however, that this would pose a difficult dilemma for Israel — do we just bring residents back home in the north (some have said they will not return in any case), just because Hezbollah chooses not to continue attacking at that point? After all, there is no assurance that they are not just biding their time until launching an Oct 7th on the northern border in the future. Or, do we take care of neutralizing the threat regardless of what Hezbollah does if Israel signs an agreement with Hamas?

By the way, Hezbollah has continued to attack us throughout the morning.

They took it easy in the afternoon, with only one volley at 14:09 and another at 17:32. Apparently, in all, over 200 missiles and drones were launched over the border into Israel.

If Canada had to clear the 49th Parallel of residents because of incoming missiles from the USA, would Canada not consider that a declaration of war on the part of the States? If France had to clear the Belgium border region for the same reason, would that not be universally regarded as a declaration of war on the part of Belgium?

Personally,

I consider the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah a real war.

The Israelis displaced from the northern border region are real people and the homes, farms and businesses they left are real homes, farms, and businesses. Their economic losses are real. The disruption of their children’s lives is real. Their fear of returning home is real.

What others call a “real” war is just a difference in degree, in my opinion. What they call a “real” war will be a whole lot worse, for sure.

But it is already bad enough. For real.

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