Israel and Hezbollah attack each other with rockets and prevent war

What happened

Israel and Hezbollah engaged in the heaviest exchange of fire in years yesterday, as Israeli fighter jets hit thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon and Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and drones into Israel. The fierce cross-border fighting was a “dramatic but controlled escalation that did not lead to open war,” according to the Washington Post.

Who said what

Hezbollah’s attack was a “preliminary response” to the July 30 killing of Israeli commander Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address on Sunday. The group could attack Israel again if it determines the damage was “not satisfactory,” but “for now we consider the response to be over.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the preemptive strikes were “not the last word,” although an Israeli military spokesman said almost all of Hezbollah’s rockets and drones had been shot down and the attack caused “very little damage.”

Three Hezbollah allies were killed in Israel’s attack in Lebanon and an Israeli naval officer died. But the “high firepower and low civilian casualties could allow both sides to claim some kind of victory and move away” from a “long-feared war,” the Associated Press said. Hezbollah wants to “say we have registered a response,” Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told the New York Times, “and now move past this phase of expecting a broader escalation.”

What happens next?