Comment by ceejayoz
I think Netanyahu's champing at the bit for escalation, and there's plenty of precedent for relatively small things triggering big responses.
As a concrete example, the last big Israel-Lebanon war resulted from the capture of two Israeli soldiers in a border raid; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War
Do you think Lebanon will escalate by capturing prisoners? I agree that that could be an escalation given the context and history. That said, I don't know what a path to peace with Hezbollah looks like. It's hard to imagine Israel tolerating it imperfect ceasefire while Hezbollah continues to arm, given how that worked out with Hamas
I think that netanyahu would be very happy to see a de-escalation on the northern border and it would be a big win for his cabinet.