Israel is most assuredly not hitting first. I have a nephew who lives about a mile from the border with Lebanon, and near the beginning of the war with Hamas in the south, he and his fellow apartment residents spent the better part of two days in their bomb shelter, because Hezbollah was firing hundreds of rockets all over northern Israel. The Israeli government has been advising people to evacuate from the north for at least the last four days, and my nephew is no longer at home. There have also been rockets fired from Syria. I don’t think that was the Syrian army, I think it was one or another terror group, or perhaps Iranian army units that are stationed there. But the central point is that in the north Israel is not initiating anything, just like it did not initiate anything in the south. A more clear-cut case of responding to aggression cannot possibly be found.
Yes, but from Syria but not from Lebanon yet.