The order to open fire on members of the Hezbollah cell who infiltrated Israel in the morning hours of July 27 was given when they were a few dozen meters away from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) position on Mount Dov. The IDF was prepared to the hilt, armed with machine guns and a Merkava 4 tank on the ground and drones in the air. The IDF fire was sudden and massive, but ineffectual — not because the snipers missed their target, but because of the order to deploy “nondirectional fire.” In other words, do not shoot to kill; shoot to make them flee. The snipers and tank crew operated accordingly, under the vigilant eye of the drones buzzing above.

They were very successful, perhaps too much so. Members of the cell, who had been trudging up the slopes of the mountain for hours, camouflaged by the dense undergrowth and skipping patiently from cover to cover, turned back, “running amok,” as one senior military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, described their flight down the dangerous, steep slope covered with shrubs, boulders and other obstacles. “We were worried about them as they ran down,” the Israeli security source told Al-Monitor. “It was a very dangerous course, in heavy heat and we weren’t sure they would make it down in one piece and not totally dehydrated.”

The group continued to flee for long minutes, with the IDF closely tracking it. When they arrived at the bottom safe and sound and were picked up by a waiting vehicle, the IDF breathed a sigh of relief. It had wanted a peaceful end to the saga. The top brass believed that the cell’s tactical retreat from the IDF position toward the wadi below would provide Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah with the strategic retreat he sought from the organization’s pledge to avenge the killing of one of its men (Ali Kamel Mohsen, also known as Jawad) in a strike near Damascus, Syria, the week before.

Nasrallah, however, did not take the hint. As of the writing of these lines, tensions persist along the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel does not understand why Nasrallah failed to take advantage of the opportunity to end this round with Israel peacefully, why Hezbollah keeps insisting revenge is still to come and why Nasrallah has distanced himself from the July 27 event but is keeping the pressure cooker on a low flame.