Making sense of the Israel-Hezbollah tit-for-tat attacks
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heightened military strikes over the August 25 weekend. While Israel carried out large scale \u2018pre-emptive\u2019 air strikes on southern Lebanon in response to what it claimed were preparations by Hezbollah to strike Israel, Hezbollah still went ahead and launched a barrage of rockets into northern Israel.\xa0\nThe attacks left one dead in Israel and three dead in Lebanon, and raised fears of the conflict escalating into a wider regional war. But Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that their strikes on Israel had completed their retaliatory response to avenge the killing of their commander Fuad Shukr, and with Israel, too, indicating satisfaction with its strikes, tensions have reduced to a low simmer for the time being.\xa0\nHow do we make sense of this tit-for-tat exchange? Can the asymmetric war that Iran and Hezbollah are waging against Israel help in moving the needle towards a ceasefire? And why has Israel launched a major military operation in the West Bank even as it\u2019s bogged down in Gaza?\xa0\nGuest: Stanly Johny, The Hindu\u2019s International Affairs Editor.\xa0\nHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu\nEdited by Jude Francis Weston