Israeli retaliation in Lebanon seems inevitable

FOR ALMOST ten months Israel and Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shia militia and political party, have stuck to unwritten rules in their low-intensity war. Both sides know their foe has fearsome firepower and so have tried to limit their strikes. They have aimed either for military targets or for evacuated border towns from which an estimated 150,000 civilians have fled.On July 27th those rules were shattered. A rocket hit a football pitch in the town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights, killing 12 children and wounding dozens of others. It was the deadliest attack on Israel-controlled territory since October 7th, when Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, massacred some 1,200 people.