The story behind it:

Hezbollah ignites broad conflict with Israel 
Reuters

BEIRUT - Hezbollah may have been seeking a morale-boosting prisoner swap with Israel, but its seizure of two Israeli soldiers has sparked a far wider confrontation for which Lebanese and Israeli civilians are paying the price.

The US, already at odds with Syria and Iran, has put the blame for violence in Lebanon and Gaza on Hezbollah and Hamas, both Islamist groups backed by Damascus and Tehran.

By striking into Israel, capturing two soldiers and killing eight, the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim guerrillas tore up unwritten rules that had prevented major border flare-ups since Israeli troops quit south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.

Israel has responded with an onslaught on Hezbollah targets and Lebanese civilian installations that has killed at least 179 people, but failed to prevent Hezbollah rocket salvos striking deeper into Israel than ever before and killing 12 Israelis.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared at the outset that the way to resolve the conflict was to exchange the two soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, saying this was among the group’s longstanding objectives.

But analysts said the rules had changed since Hezbollah pulled off just such a swap in 2004, when Israel freed over 400 prisoners for an abducted businessman and three dead soldiers.

"I think Hezbollah miscalculated," said Nizar Hamzeh, a Lebanese expert on the group at the American University of Kuwait. "Israel reacted differently this time."

Nevertheless, both sides appeared to have been well-prepared for the whirlwind of hostilities unleashed six days ago.

Hezbollah has shown new military capacities, with unrelenting rocket strikes on Haifa and beyond, and a missile hit on an Israeli naval ship that killed four sailors.

Israel has devastated Lebanon’s infrastructure and Hezbollah buildings, but failed to halt the rocket fire, kill Nasrallah or force Hezbollah’s television and radio off the air.

"Clearly Israel had a plan and is implementing it after Hezbollah gave it a pretext," said Farid al-Khazen, a Lebanese Christian parliamentarian and political science professor.

"The implications go far beyond Lebanon," he said, adding that many would link Hezbollah’s actions to Syria and Iran even if the Lebanese group was acting on its own initiative.

Israel has portrayed its campaign in Lebanon as a struggle against an "axis of terror" involving Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah that threatens the whole world - echoing language used by the US since the September 11 attacks.

For many in the Muslim world, angered by the plight of the Palestinians and by the Iraq war, the threat is seen more as US-Israeli hegemony and military adventurism.

"There is a cumulative response, political and emotional, to the US-Israeli assault on the region," said Rami Khouri, a commentator for Beirut’s English-language Daily Star newspaper.

"Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are getting more radical and more militarily sophisticated. There is discontent among Arab populations against their (pro-Western) governments. Syria and Iran are exploiting this," Khouri said.

This is small comfort to Lebanon, whose people are watching in fury as Israel systematically pounds their country, saying it is cleansing its neighbour of a "foreign body".

Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s chief, has ridiculed suggestions that his fighters are anything but authentically Lebanese, or that they can be disarmed or removed from the south as Palestinian guerrillas were expelled by Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

But many Lebanese are angry with Hezbollah for provoking a war, just when they were praying for prosperity and groping for a new national consensus after decades of Syrian tutelage.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has described the conflict as an "Iranian-Syrian fight against Israel". Nasrallah should understand that "Lebanon is not Gaza", he added.

Khazen also said the Lebanese were fed up. "They don’t want their country to be an arena for more proxy wars. They have been through many wars and they want this carnage to end."

The US and its rich-world partners said yesterday the first step must be the release of Israeli captives in Gaza and Lebanon and an end to Hezbollah and Hamas rocket strikes.

But so far international diplomacy to halt the conflict has gained little traction, with Hezbollah defiant and Israel determined to drive the group away from its border.

Khouri said the pain inflicted on civilians on both sides might eventually force the adversaries towards a ceasefire.

"There is a new balance of civilian fear," he said.