By David Harris, Geng Xuepeng
When Israel's military chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, met new army recruits on Tuesday, he reassured them and the attendant media that all is quiet on the northern front.
"There was an incident which to our understanding was an explosion of a weapon cache belonging to Hezbollah, which is being handled by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese government," the Israeli daily Ha'aretz quoted him as saying.
He was referring to the June 14 explosion at an arms depot in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have launched an investigation in a bid to determine whether the ammunition is the leftover of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in 2006, or Hezbollah-stored arms.
Ashkenazi said Israel viewed the incident with gravity but anticipated no other major developments on the Israeli-Lebanese border in the near future.
Yet just 24 hours before the chief of staff made these comments, Israeli officials were expressing concerns that the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah was trying to orchestrate civilian protests just across the frontier from Israel. The Shiite political and paramilitary organization is doing this to increase tension along the border, the officials said.
Xinhua has spoken with numerous experts in Lebanon, Israel and beyond since Ashkenazi offered his take on the northern situation, and, as with the upper echelons of Israeli military and diplomatic circles, opinion is divided.
"There is no other way around it. It's bound to happen sooner or later," said Ziad Abdelnour, the founder and president of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, suggesting the violence will inevitably resume.
"I do not expect an outbreak of hostilities on this front. Hezbollah has domestic priorities to deal with, while the Syrian, Iranian, and Israeli governments all have larger issues on their mind," suggested the director of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes. However, he decided to cover all bases by adding the rider that "surprises are routine in the Middle East and there might be one here too."
These together with other comments leave a very confusing picture. Since the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, there have been various signs from both sides pointing to calm and escalation.
On a handful of occasions since hostilities ceased, rockets have been fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. None of them caused any injuries and Hezbollah denied involvement in any of the strikes. The feeling in Israel is that the attacks were not carried out by Hezbollah, but rather with its consent.
At the same time, Israeli planes continue to fly through Lebanese air space in order to keep tabs on what is happening below, according to Israeli military sources, though others claim the flights take place to remind those at ground level of Israel's fire power.
