OVER THE PAST month there has been a very real threat that, besides Israel’s fierce fighting with Hamas in Gaza, tension on its northern border might escalate into a second front. Dozens of Israeli villages and towns were evacuated near the border with Lebanon where Hizbullah, a powerful militia-cum-political-party and sworn enemy of Israel, operates. On October 27th America’s State Department advised its citizens in Lebanon—some 86,000 people—to leave immediately. But Hizbullah’s rhetoric over recent days has signalled restraint. In a speech on November 3rd Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, appeared to show that he wanted to avoid engaging in an all-out war. Our satellite data show whether this rhetoric matches the reality on the ground (see map).
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The satellite data are updated twice daily, tallying large fires detected by FIRMS, a NASA satellite system that was originally designed to detect forest fires. Using a machine-learning model, we are able to estimate whether events picked up by the satellites are related to fighting or non-war-related fires. Like any view of the war, it is imperfect and incomplete. But unlike other methods, it offers a consistent and neutral guide to probable military activity.
The data reveal two phases of conflict. The first was a significant uptick in war-related fires near Israel’s border with Lebanon and Syria, shortly after it launched its offensive on Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th. Hundreds of fires were detected along the border by the beginning of November, with particularly ferocious activity in late October (see chart).
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But the second phase appears to show a significant decline in fighting since October 26th (though cloud cover over the past few weeks limited the satellites’ view). Since November 3rd there have been just a few events per day. This should calm fears of a wider conflagration, especially as the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which Hizbullah warned would trigger an escalation, is already under way.
These data align with reports from the ground: that although the current flare-up along Israel’s northern border is the most significant since a war in 2006, for now the fighting is contained.
It is too soon to completely write off the possibility of further escalation. At least 14 Lebanese and two Israeli civilians have been killed near the border. Seven Israeli soldiers and 61 Hizbullah fighters have been killed in the past month (the real total may be even higher). The death toll may be one reason why firing has died down, as Hizbullah reassesses its tactics. Adding to tensions, Hamas fighters continue to operate from Lebanon, lobbing rockets at Israel from bases there. On November 6th they claimed responsibility for a barrage of rockets on the town of Nahariya and on Haifa, the largest city in northern Israel, the first time it has been targeted in this war. If Hamas continues to increase the range of its attacks, that would mark a significant escalation in the exchanges between Israel and Lebanon-based fighters. The region is still on edge.
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