Hezbollah members march during the funeral procession of their comrades who were killed in Friday's Israeli strike.

Amid the drama of Israel’s devastating booby traps and precision air strikes against Hezbollah, it is easy to lose sight of what is really at stake. With ex-diplomats and academic experts filling the airwaves with warnings against a conflagration in the Middle East, some readers may believe their claims that Israel is responsible for anything and everything that its sworn enemies inflict upon the region.

The truth is more or less the opposite. The Israel Defence Force is determined to defeat Hezbollah, like Hamas before it, solely because these terrorist organisations pose a lethal threat to its own civilians. Too many in the West have played down the relentless rocket bombardment of northern Israel by Hezbollah, but the displaced populations of entire cities such as Kiryat Shmona cannot ignore it. Would we tolerate the forced evacuation of, say, Dover?

Retaliation is necessary to deter such attacks – and it is also legitimate, even under a strict interpretation of international law. Targeting terrorists by detonating their pagers and walkie-talkies is both proportionate and precise.

Israel would be justified in acting in self-defence even if it were openly pitted against hostile states such as Iran. However, Hezbollah and Hamas are not state actors, but illegitimate terror networks bent on indiscriminate murder. They, like their Iranian sponsors, are driven by a genocidal ideology, one which seeks to transform the ancient religion of Islam into a death cult.

Moreover, by striking back at these fanatics, Israel strengthens Jewish people in the global diaspora who suffer from the scourge of anti-Semitism. Indeed, the sight of terrorists getting their comeuppance should give heart to those who love freedom and democracy everywhere.

What, though, about the danger of a full-scale war in Lebanon, which could spread elsewhere? Escalation cannot be ruled out, especially if Iran unleashes its hellhounds. Hezbollah is believed to possess some 150,000 missiles, enough to inflict mass casualties by overwhelming Israel’s Iron Dome defence system.

Hence Israel is quite right to pre-empt such an onslaught. Rather than calling for ceasefires that help the terrorists to regroup, Britain and other allies should applaud Israel’s decisive action – for it is the only path to peace.

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