Tensions Increase On Israel/Lebanon Border

Today has seen an escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran-backed, Lebanon-based, Hezbollah following an Israeli attack which killed 10 Lebanese civilians this week. In a televised address a short time ago, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, responding to the attack, said Israel will pay a price "in blood."

• Nasrallah: "The response to the massacre should be continuing resistance work at the front and escalating resistance work at the front. Our women and our children who were killed in these days, the enemy will pay the price of spilling their blood in blood."
• The Times of Israel reports that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said today that Israel will be forced to remove Hezbollah from the border in southern Lebanon if efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to ease the tensions fail.
• Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Katz said: “The world must pressure Iran and Hezbollah to withdraw from South Lebanon and implement UN resolution 1701.”
• The uptick in tensions suggest a recent French-led plan to demiliterise the Israel-Lebanon border region has failed to gain traction. According to Reuters, "a proposal was delivered to Beirut last week with the aim of preventing a conflict 'that risks spiraling out of control' and enforcing 'a potential ceasefire, when the conditions are right' and ultimately envisions negotiations on delineation of the contentious land border between Lebanon and Israel."
• Reuters notes: "Hezbollah rejects formally negotiating a de-escalation until the war in Gaza ends, a position reiterated by a Hezbollah politician...."