This is insane. Israel is simply escalating the conflict with Hezbollah. There's no other way to interpret their actions. The idea that Israel would expect Hezbollah to just back down after the two pager attacks and then a widened bombing campaign in Southern Lebanon is completely detached from reality.
There are two ways to look at this: Either (1) the Israeli government actually believes that Hezbollah will back down after Israel hit it hard several times over the past few days, or (2) they are lying and they know they are stirring up more violence to trigger more war along Israel's Northern border.
I don't think you could possibly believe #1 without holding incredibly racist assumptions about human nature. Again and again, Israel claims the inherent right to "defend itself" by causing violence to its neighbors after Israelis are killed by those neighbors. When that happens, Israelis claim striking back is what anyone would do under those circumstances. But the other side of that coin is that if Israel causes mass casualties on its neighbors than it should expect the neighbors to want to hit back against Israel hard. If that's what "anyone would do in those circumstances" then aren't the Lebanese "anyone" too? If Israelis actually think that Hezbollah will get less violent in these circumstances, they are just admitting that they don't view them as regular people. They are more like animals who must be cowed by inflicting pain until they are "broken in" like a horse. It is a sick and incredibly bigoted way to look at the world.
In my mind it is better if it is #2, they are lying. So instead of viewing Lebanese people as sub-human, Israeli leaders are trying to up the ante and ramp up violence against Lebanon. Why would they do that? My best guess is Gaza is winding down, they are running out of Hamas targets and Netanyahu knows he will go to jail if Israel stops being at war. So he needs a war with Hezbollah to save his own skin.
