'Hezbollah is taunting Israel': Retired US general calls Majdal Shams attack 'intentional'

The strike by Hezbollah on Israel was not "unintentional" but a "taunting towards Israel," retired US military general and military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling told CNN on Monday morning.

Hertling, who previously served as the Commanding General of the US Army in Europe and led the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, spoke to CNN following the Hezbollah strike on Majdal Shams, which killed 12 Druze children and wounded many more on Saturday.

Hertling strongly disagreed with the claims by a Western official in a previous CNN interview that the strike was "unintentional" and that neither side wanted an all-out war. 

"It's pretty apparent that the rockets came out of Lebanese territory, that they bear the markings of Iranian rockets and missiles, that this has been a repeated strike, and that it has been a taunting by Hezbollah towards Israel," he told CNN.

On Sunday, IDF spokesperson R-Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed that the rocket was a Falaq 1 rocket of Iranian production with a warhead carrying 53kg of explosives. Hagari announced that Hezbollah “carried out the launch from the Chebaa area in Lebanon.” 

As a result of the attack, IDF Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi announced on Sunday that Israel’s readiness for the next phase of fighting in the North is to be raised to the “next level.”

Hertling addressed this escalation, saying he had said "since the very beginning that Israel would be foolish to open a second front from a military perspective" but that he knew that a "proportional response" was needed to counter the constant attacks from Hezbollah.

"I'm not talking about the politics of this, but from a military perspective," he told CNN. "A military commander never wants to open a second front with his enemy."

"But when you have continuous attacks on the territory of Israel by Hezbollah, another terrorist organization, another organization that has supported Iran, you have to provide a proportional response."

He said the biggest fear right now is what form this 'proportional response' would take, given the difficulty of balancing the necessity of a response with the complexity of this type of warfare and the possibility of significant collateral damage.

"As we've all known, those that have studied the history of Israel's wars into Lebanon in 1982 and 2004, those have been somewhat disastrous for the IDF because they get caught up in a quagmire inside of Lebanon," Hertling added.

"You're talking about dealing not only with terrorists but with a nation-state, so it's very difficult for Israel to counter this kind of thing from a terrorist organization that receives the blessing from the Iranian government to be in their [Israel's] territory."

Hertling and Israel

Over ten years ago, in 2012, then-US Army in Europe commander Hertling spoke of the necessity of joint US-IDF training exercises due to common goals. 

“Israel came out of the intifada like we are coming out of the counter-insurgency environment. We see the same thing, which is the need to continue to train,” Hertling said.

In an op-ed for the Bulwark on Oct. 13, 2023, he referred to then-IDF Chief Shlomi Turgeman as a friend and partner.

In the same publication, Hertling referred to the Hamas attack on Oct.7 as "shocking and blood-curdling" and called the IDF a respected and "commonly misunderstood" army.

Darcie Grunblatt contributed to this report.