Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of Captain Yochai Kalangel during his funeral at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem Jan. 29.

BEIRUT — Israel and Hezbollah signaled on Thursday their rare flare-up in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border was over, after the Lebanese guerrillas killed two Israeli troops in retaliation for a deadly air strike in Syria last week.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah attacked an Israeli army convoy in the Shebaa Farms, a mountainous, narrow sliver of land illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

Israel said it had received a message from UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, that Hezbollah was not interested in further escalation.

In Beirut, a Lebanese source briefed on the situation said Israel informed Hezbollah via UNIFIL “that it will make do with what happened yesterday and it does not want the battle to expand.”

A high ranking official in Hezbollah told The Arab American News that the group is on high alert and the group is ready to deal with any development.

The source added that the operation was successful and carried out with exceptional precision, confirming that Israel does not have international backing to start a war.

The Arab American News also learned that international calls for self-restraint were also made to Hezbollah leaders.

Asked on Israel’s Army Radio whether Hezbollah had sought to de-escalate, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: “There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via UNIFIL and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon.”

A salvo of Hezbollah guided missiles killed an Israeli infantry major and a conscript soldier as they rode in unmarked civilian vehicles along the Lebanese border on Wednesday.

Israel then launched an artillery and air barrage and a Spanish peacekeeper was killed. Spain blamed the Israeli fire for his death. 

“It is clear that this was because of the escalation of the violence and it came from the Israeli side,” Spanish Ambassador to the UN Roman Oyarzun told reporters.

Israel said on Thursday that its deputy foreign minister met the ambassador to voice regret at the death and promise an inquiry.

Wednesday’s clash was one of the most serious on that border since 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. Quiet returned on Thursday, though Lebanese media reported overflights by Israeli air force drones.

Both sides appear to share an interest in avoiding further escalation.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, is busy backing Damascus in Syria’s civil war. It may also be mindful of the ruin Israel has threatened to wreak on Lebanon should they again enter a full-on conflict.

Israel is gearing up for a March 17 general election and gauging the costs of its offensive on the Gaza Strip last year against Palestinian guerrillas, whose arsenal is dwarfed by Hezbollah’s powerful long-range rockets.

The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part, said in a statement it was determined to keep stability in southern Lebanon and to deny the “Israeli enemy the chance to drag Lebanon to a wide confrontation.”

In a separate interview, Yaalon described Israeli forces on the Lebanese border as being vigilant, but not on war footing.

“I can’t say whether the events are behind us,” he told Israel Radio. “Until the area completely calms down, the Israel Defense Forces will remain prepared and ready.”

Yaalon termed Wednesday’s Hezbollah attack “revenge” for the Israeli air strike on Jan. 18 in southern Syria that killed several Hezbollah members, including a senior operative, along with an Iranian general.

The Hezbollah brigade which carried out the attack, the “Quneitra martyrs of the Islamic Resistance”, was named in reference to the Israeli strike. 

Israel has not formally acknowledged carrying out the air strike, but Yaalon said it had set back Hezbollah and Iranian efforts to “open a new front” against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.

UNIFIL officials did not confirm or deny passing messages between Israel and Hezbollah.

UNIFIL says it has no contacts with Hezbollah but its head of mission was in close contact with Israel and the Lebanese government throughout the day. The channel of communication “is still open now and it is always open in order to ask the parties to exercise maximum restraint”, spokesman Andrea Tenenti said.

During Wednesday’s flare-up, Israeli troops launched a search for suspected tunnels that Hezbollah might use to send in guerrillas for a cross-border attack — a tactic employed by Palestinian Hamas fighters during the 2014 Gaza war.

“No tunnels have been found so far,” Yaalon told Army Radio.

On Thursday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), said Israeli fighter jets penetrated deep into Lebanese airspace, startling residents as the jets flew over the capital Beirut.

Israeli jets were also seen flying over southern Lebanese towns.

In 2013, Lebanon filed an official complaint to the United Nations over the regular Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty. 

-Reuters, TAAN