Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have raised fears of an escalation of the Gaza war

The Israeli military bombed the Gaza Strip this Thursday, while tensions have escalated on the Israeli-Lebanese border with Hezbollah’s leader issuing threats to Israel and announcing a possible attack into Lebanon.

The border between Israel and Lebanon has been the scene of almost daily artillery battles since the war in Gaza began on October 7 between the Jewish state and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, warned on Wednesday that “no place” in Israel would be safe from Israel’s missiles if the Israeli government opened a new front on its northern border.

While visiting northern Israel, Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi said his country has “infinitely superior capabilities” than Hezbollah.

The situation in the border area was calm on Thursday morning. In the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas and ravaged by more than eight months of war, Israeli bombing shows no sign of stopping.

Two people were killed in a bombing in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the heart of the Palestinian enclave, according to medical sources.

Witnesses also reported tank fire in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City in the north, and the Bureij and Maghazi areas.

In Rafah, on the southern edge of the enclave, clashes were taking place between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters, according to a source in Hamas’ armed wing.

– An “instant” stress reduction –

The war began on October 7, when Islamist militants killed 1,194 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 others in southern Israel, according to calculations based on official Israeli figures.

The Israeli military estimates that 116 people have been kidnapped in Gaza, of whom 41 have been killed.

In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed at least 37,431 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The conflict has also unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe that the United Nations says has left Gazans on the brink of famine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing internal and external criticism for his handling of the war and his failure to free the hostages.

But the prominent leader of a coalition of nationalist, ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox Jewish forces confirmed he would continue the war until Hamas, which is considered a “terrorist” organisation by Israel, the European Union and the United States, is “wiped out”.

Amos Hochstein, an envoy of US President Joe Biden who visited Israel and Lebanon this week, deemed easing tensions on the border “urgent” and defended the ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip presented by Biden on May 31.

– “Nowhere is safe” –

After weeks of intensified gunfire from both sides of the border, the Israeli military announced on Tuesday it was ready for an “offensive” against Hezbollah, which is backed and financed by Iran.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz threatened to destroy Hezbollah in “total war”.

“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared for the worst (…) and that no place (…) will be safe from our rockets,” the Hezbollah leader declared on Wednesday.

He said rockets could be fired against Israel from “land, air and sea.”

Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus, saying the eastern Mediterranean country, a member of the European Union, would be considered “part of the war” if it authorised Israel to use its air bases and bases to attack Lebanon.

“Cyprus is not involved in this war in any way,” Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said in a statement.

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