Israel informed the US that if Hezbollah harms Israeli civilians in its response to the elimination of Hezbollah commander Fuard Shukr, the IDF will respond with disproportionate force, Axios reported.

Israeli officials aren’t interested in an all-out war with Hezbollah and are now making it clear what would escalate the conflict into a war.

On Tuesday, Ibrahim al-Amin, the editor-in-chief of the Al-Akhbar Lebanese newspaper reported that Hezbollah will likely target Tel Aviv in a retaliatory strike against Israel.

Al-Amin, who is considered close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, wrote that Hezbollah has leeway to target Israeli civilians because Lebanese civilians were killed during Shukr’s elimination.

“If Hezbollah can choose targets, it is possible that it will target Tel Aviv and civilians might be harmed on the margins,” he wrote in a front-page article. “The effective thing will be to hit a significant center of the organization that made the decision about the assassination and took part in it.”

Israeli officials are concerned that Hezbollah will target the IDF headquarters in central Tel Aviv or the Mossad headquarters and other intelligence bases in northern Tel Aviv. All the targets are located close to civilian areas and Israel told the US it fears Hezbollah could hit civilian population centers if it strikes military bases in central Israel.

Israel believes that the Hezbollah rocket that hit Majdal Shams last month, killing 12 children, was a rocket that was aimed at a military base but missed its target.

“In the internal discussions with the U.S., Israel stressed that the cost of another Hezbollah mishap would be heavy and that Hezbollah would pay a disproportionate price if it harmed civilians as part of its retaliation,” a senior Israeli official said.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)