“They’ve denied that they did anything this time round and therefore they reserve the right – and even have an obligation – to respond in the future,” Makdissi said. “They’ve gotten good at this brand of psychological warfare – saying to the Israelis that they should wait, with the knowledge that a response will eventually come. It’s sort of like a show: ‘come back tomorrow and see what happens’.”

Israel and Hezbollah fought to a stalemate in a month-long war in Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah was able to overwhelm Israel’s ground invasion of southern Lebanon and attack military and civilian targets, undermining support for the war inside Israel.

“I don’t see either side having a particular interest in another war,” said Makdissi. “There can be token events but that’s about it. Hezbollah will feel the need to respond to maintain this deterrence mechanism it has built up over years.”

‘It’s coming’

Tension has risen along Israel’s northern frontier with Lebanon and Syria, including the occupied Golan Heights, after the Hezbollah fighter was killed in an apparent Israeli air attack near Damascus last Monday.

“What happened in Syria is an aggression that led to the death of Ali Kamil Mohsen,” Hezbollah’s second-in-command Naim Qasim said in a televised interview on Sunday.

Wiam Wahab, a former Lebanese minister and a well-connected pro-Hezbollah politician, said Monday’s incident “was not an operation” by Hezbollah but may have been a reconnaissance mission.

“It’s coming – but there isn’t one today,” he told local news channel Al Jadeed.

Speaking in parliament earlier, Netanyahu said the government was closely following developments in the north.

“The military is prepared for every scenario,” he said. “We operate in all the arenas for Israel’s defence – close to our borders and far from our borders.

“Lebanon and Hezbollah will bear the responsibility for any attack from Lebanese territory.”

Netanyahu and Defence Minister Benny Gantz cut short meetings in parliament to meet military commanders at army headquarters in Tel Aviv.

‘Strategic threat’

Following the killing of two Hezbollah members in Syria last August, Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, pledged that it would respond if Israel killed any more of its fighters in the country.

Hezbollah deployed fighters in Syria as part of Iranian-backed efforts to support President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s nine-year conflict.

Israel sees the presence of Hezbollah and its ally Iran in Syria as a strategic threat, and has mounted hundreds of air raids on Iranian-linked targets there.

The last exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel took place in September 2019, when the Lebanese armed group launched rockets across the southern border at an Israeli vehicle, and Israel responded by shelling border areas. There were no confirmed casualties.

That attack came in response to an Israeli drone attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.