UNIFIL deputy spokesperson expects war to end soon

Kandice Ardiel, the Deputy Spokesperson of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has said that the situation in south Lebanon has become less tense following Sunday’s flare-up between Israel and Hezbollah.

In an interview with al-Hurra television, Ardiel added that she is reassured that the war will end soon.

Despite Sunday’s flare-up, both Israel and Hezbollah appeared to show restraint, averting all-out war amid 10 months of clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Hezbollah had vowed to respond to an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last month that killed the group's top military commander Fouad Shukur.

The Iran-backed group has traded near daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

On Sunday, the Israeli military said it launched air strikes on Hezbollah targets "that posed an imminent threat," with around 100 fighter jets striking more than 270 targets, "90 percent" of which "were short-range rockets aimed at northern Israel."

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Israeli strikes came half an hour before his group launched more than 300 Katyusha rockets at 11 Israeli military sites, and that drones then targeted two military bases in Israel’s heart, one of them just outside Tel Aviv, in response to Shukur's killing.

The flare-up lasted several hours, with relatively limited damage reported on both sides, and Lebanon's National News Agency saying most of the Israeli strikes targeted open areas.

Nasrallah said his group's "main target" was Israel's Glilot military intelligence base near Tel Aviv. An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP "there were no hits at the Glilot base."

Three deaths were reported in Lebanon on Sunday -- two Hezbollah fighters and another from its ally, the Amal Movement.

An Israeli navy soldier was also killed. An official telling AFP an Israeli air-defense interceptor may have hit their boat.

Since the flare-up, the regular cross-border exchanges have resumed.

A Western diplomat, requesting anonymity because the matter is sensitive, said both sides "showed restraint," and that Hezbollah's attack "did not spark a large (Israeli) response."

"Diplomatic pressure contributed to avoiding a broader conflagration," the diplomat based in Beirut told AFP, noting however that cross-border violence could still further deteriorate.

The risk of a regional war extends beyond the Lebanon-Israel border, with Iran and allied armed groups threatening to retaliate to strikes blamed on Israel.

Yemen's Houthi rebels have warned their response to an Israeli attack on the port of Hodeida last month "is definitely coming."

Iran also has vowed to respond an attack last month in Tehran, blamed on Israel, that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X late Sunday that Tehran's response would be "definitive, and will be measured and well calculated."