The New York Times reported that this is not the first time, and Hizbullah activists in Syria have received warnings before attacks • On the other hand, Hezbollah is also adopting a similar policy

• IDF soldiers on Lebanese border after detecting defects in fence Photo: Eyal Margolin / Gini

Israel and Hezbollah have adopted formal rules of combat operations as both parties prepare for a possible war in parallel with an effort not to set it on fire, the New York Times reported Thursday on the border fence and Lebanon's assassination attempt last week. 

According to the report, when the missile struck near a Hezbollah jeep, the three terrorist operatives left and fled to cover. A moment later, as someone who apparently knows they have time, the operatives returned to take cases and ran away again before the second missile hit. Among other things, the report based this information on a video distributed in Lebanese media and its credibility is unclear, but also on various factors in Israel and the Middle East. 

The video posted in Lebanese media

Remember, none of Hezbollah's people were killed or injured in an attack attributed to Israel on the Syria-Lebanon border. But according to some current and past senior figures in Israel and the Middle East who spoke with the New York Times, Jerusalem has taken a cautionary policy against Hezbollah operatives on the Syria-Lebanon border before bombing the vehicles. This is to avoid killing them and risk deteriorating into the war in Lebanon. 

According to an American newspaper report, the previously unpublished Syria's early warning attack reflects Israel's concern about tackling Hezbollah's arsenal of rockets, despite its attempt to draw a red line that would prevent the acquisition and development of accurate missiles. 

"We can see you"

In recent years, Israeli attacks against Syria have been widely reported against Syria. According to senior figures in the Middle East pro-Iranian coalition, Hezbollah activists in Syria received phone calls from Israeli officials warning them to evacuate bases before being bombed. An intelligence official said the first missile launched at the jeep last week was a deliberate miss, a warning shot aimed at forcing people to retreat so the vehicle could explode.

He said the plan failed in this case because the people returned to the vehicle to take the bags before it was bombed. But the idea, says a Middle East intelligence official, is to say to Hezbollah: "We can see you, even if we don't kill you." 

At the same time, it was reported that Hezbollah itself had deliberately avoided killing Israelis in recent years, probably for fear of a war that would wreak havoc in most of Lebanon. Two days after the jeep bombing, Hezbollah allegedly damaged the Lebanese border by three points. Amin Houthi, a former Lebanese general close to Hezbollah, said that "the gesture was a way for Hezbollah to send a non-lethal message to Israelis," in response to the jeep's attack, and an attempt by Hezbollah to show that it could cross the border if it wished.