Clashes on the Lebanese-Israeli border raise fears of a wider war

At first glance, the crossfire on Lebanon’s border with Israel appears minor, dwarfed by the scale and intensity of the Hamas-Israel war further south. But experts with whom CNN journalists spoke do not think so.

Fighting continued in a roughly 4-kilometer radius on either side of the demarcation line, with at least 13 people killed since last Saturday.

However, this sparsely populated piece of mountainous terrain could become the launching pad for a regional war involving multiple players, including Iran and the United States.

Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed armed group that is itself a regional power, dominates southern Lebanon. It also operates alongside the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, where the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights separates Israel from militants linked to Tehran.

For much of the past week, the fighting has been a quiet exchange of fire between Lebanon-based militants and Israeli forces.

Palestinian militants fired their first shots from Lebanon hours after the Hamas surprise attack on October 7, firing rockets that were intercepted over Israel. Israel responded by shelling Lebanese territory, including at Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah then launched rockets into Israel’s northernmost territory. This cycle repeated for several days.

By Friday morning, three Israeli soldiers and three Hezbollah fighters had been killed in cross-border shootings.

But then the struggle intensified. Around 5pm on Friday, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, also from southern Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli strike that wounded at least six other international journalists.

Video analysis CNN showed that the journalists were wearing vests clearly marked “for the press.”

According to a Lebanese security source and video reviewed by CNN, an Israeli Apache helicopter was flying over their location when they were fired upon by what the Lebanese army and Israeli statements indicate was artillery.

Israel said it was investigating the incident.