Israel’s assassination of a top Hezbollah field commander on Tuesday has raised, once again, concerns over a wider Israeli war in Lebanon after months of clashes.

Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese movement, fired over 200 missiles into Israel in retaliation and has vowed to intensify its attacks following the killing of Taleb Sami Abdallah.

Since then, the Lebanese movement has proven itself capable of downing several advanced Hermes 900 drones, firing anti-aircraft missiles against Israeli jets, which it claims forced them to retreat, and even carrying out a symbolic strike against an Iron Dome air defence unit.

“Hezbollah is becoming more audacious, and I think the Israelis are surprised by this,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah expert and lecturer in politics at Cardiff University.

“They know what it has, its arsenal, but they didn’t think it would have the audacity to use them, at least not for Gaza,” she told Middle East Eye, suggesting that Israel expected the Lebanese movement to reserve such weapons for a direct war with Lebanon.

This escalation, experts say, is likely linked to the political deadlock over Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

On 31 May, US President Joe Biden presented what he called an Israeli ceasefire plan, which shares similarities with a proposal accepted by Hamas weeks ago. Israel, however, refuses to sign up to any proposal that definitively ends the war, something Hamas insists on.