Two incidents on Israel's northern border last week have raised concerns that Hizbollah is planning more aggressive operations in the near future.
In an explosion on Tuesday morning near Mount Dov, close to the Lebanese border, two soldiers from an IDF bomb-disposal unit were moderately wounded.
The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device, a number of which had been planted near the Israeli military position.
The attack followed an incident days earlier in which an Israeli unit had opened fire on gunmen crossing the border.
In the eight years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Hizbollah have very rarely taken responsibility for operations across the Israeli border, for fear of provoking a damaging Israeli response. On Tuesday, however, the Shia movement's television channel, Al Manar, was quick to take responsibility for what it claimed was a reprisal for the death of a Hizbollah operative, killed last month while trying to dismantle an Israeli listening device in Lebanon.
For the past three years, Hizbollah has been deeply involved in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime, and has lost hundreds of fighters.
The Israeli assessment is that Hizbollah is not seeking a major escalation while its resources are stretched.
However, the terror group seems to be intent on sending a message to Israel and the various parties in Lebanon that it is not about to relinquish the role of "armed resistance" to Israel, which is its main justification for remaining both a political party and an armed militia with more firepower than the Lebanese army.
