James Jay Carafano

Israel sustained the largest rocket attack from Lebanon since 2006 overnight, with some three dozen projectiles launched into the Jewish State, while there was a smaller attack on southern Israel out of the Gaza strip. The attacks came at the unusual confluence of Passover, Ramadan and Easter, and in the wake of unrest on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem Wednesday, when Israeli forces detained Muslims who had barricaded themselves at the Al Aqsa mosque complex.

So we asked a real expert, Victoria Coates, to give us a rundown.

What’s the bottom line? Expect a robust Israeli response. It is unclear what will happen after that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet in recent hours, and promised an “unusual response,” indicating this is not routine terrorist activity.

Why now? An attack on this scale on this very holy day cannot be a coincidence, and most analysts assume the Iranian proxy terrorist group that controls Lebanon Hezbollah is the culprit.  The true nature of the attack may be more complex, however.  The head of Hamas (an Iranian proxy terrorist group that controls Gaza) Ismail Haniyeh is visiting Lebanon this week to meet with Hezbollah leadership, opening the possibility that Israel is facing a two-front attack in both the north and south that is being supplied and coordinated by Iran, which is now operating with impunity in Lebanon due to the lack of a functioning Lebanese government.

What’s the U.S. doing? The Biden administration, which has been increasingly hostile to the Netanyahu government in recent weeks, has so far focused on calls for both sides to not escalate, and to bemoan the fact that launching rockets from Lebanon puts the Lebanese people at risk.