The targeted Israeli bombings of Beirut, as a result of which a number of high-ranking political and military officials of Hezbollah (including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah) and Hamas.

Why did Israel decide to escalate in Lebanon?

For several months now, Tel Aviv has been warning that it will enter into a military conflict with the militant organisation Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. For many years, Israeli diplomacy and intelligence have been actively working to split the relations of Arab countries on the Palestinian issue.

It was no accident that Benjamin Netanyahu divided Arab states into partners and opponents of Israel. As you know, he attributed Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, Morocco and Sudan to the first group, i.e. the richest, resource-rich states that maintain favourable economic relations with the West and are set up for business partnership with Israel (some of them signed the Abraham Accords in 2020-2021). The second group includes Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, which are backed by Shi’a Iran and support the anti-Israeli resistance.

The long-winded Arab-Israeli conflict in Gaza has in many ways become the result of Iran’s active military-political support of Shi’a proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Israel views Iran as its main adversary. Considering the absence of direct border with Iran and Tehran’s strategy of guaranteeing sufficient military might (including their nuclear programme), Tel Aviv has for many years actively worked towards creating supporting military facilities near the Iranian border on the territory of neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan and Azerbaijan.

The government of Netanyahu is not at all interested in the restoration of economic and trade ties between Iran and Western states. In 2018, during the presidency of Donald Trump, Israel blocked the 2015 JCPOA (also known as ‘5 1’ between Iran and the P5, i.e. USA, Russia, UK, PRC, France), which was related to the easing of anti-Iranian sanctions. At that time, US........

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