DUBAI: Tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have continued to escalate since violence along the shared border first erupted in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the Gaza conflict. In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, the low-intensity conflict has expanded both in scope and intensity in recent weeks, leading to fears of an imminent full-scale war.
The violence since early October has killed at least 455 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the army. Israel has carried out nearly 4,900 attacks in southern Lebanon since Oct.
7, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) Project. ACLED says Hezbollah has launched around 1,100 attacks on Israel as well as territories it has occupied in Lebanon over the same period. Israeli strikes have made the entire border area in southern Lebanon a no-go zone, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people, according to the UN migration agency, IOM.
The same is true in northern Israel, where Hezbollah attacks have displaced 80,000 residents. Since the tit-for-tat attacks began, Lebanese officials and communities living along the border have been braced for a potential escalation into a conflict of a scale not seen since the 2006 war. In recent months, influential Israeli officials have been .
