The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, was in Tel Aviv the day before yesterday and remained there until yesterday.
After his return to Beirut, three developments emerged in rapid succession:
The issue of the detainees and the release of some of them under arrangements led by Washington.
Israel announced that it had taken control of Ali Al-Taher Ridge and cleared the tunnels of Hezbollah fighters.
Then came the Reuters leak: Iran warned the United States that any large-scale Israeli operation to seize the ridge would trigger a strong Iranian response.
This is where the real questions begin.
Are we looking at some kind of deal that was deliberately presented this way?
Or was this simply a coincidence between diplomatic and security tracks that were moving simultaneously?
More importantly, Israel’s announcement that it had taken control of Ali Al-Taher may have defused the most dangerous tripwire that could have triggered a much wider confrontation.
Had Israel decided to launch a major military operation to seize the ridge by force, the risks would have been considerably higher: Israeli casualties, direct clashes with Hezbollah, and the possibility of Iran entering the equation.
Instead, by announcing that it had secured the ridge following an operation that Israel says had been underway for months, Tel Aviv can present the situation as an established military reality rather than launching another major offensive.
And that raises the key question:
Was the tripwire defused before it could explode?
And in whose interest?
Washington certainly has no interest in a new Iranian-Israeli confrontation unfolding over Lebanese territory.
Tehran does not want to be forced into a direct war over a ridge in southern Lebanon.
As for Israel, it may have obtained what it wanted on the ground without paying the price that a large-scale assault could have entailed.
But there is one detail that cannot be ignored:
The timing of Michel Issa’s visit, the detainee issue, the Iranian warning revealed by Reuters, and then the announcement of Israeli control over Ali Al-Taher.
Are these simply a series of coincidences?
Or are we looking at part of a larger understanding that has not yet been made public?
For now, there is not enough evidence to draw a definitive conclusion.
But the timeline alone deserves scrutiny.
Ali Al-Taher may not simply be a military story… It may have been a political pressure point that came dangerously close to triggering a much wider confrontation — and a way may have been found to defuse it.
And the most important question:
Has the Ali Al-Taher crisis ended… or is Israeli control of the ridge the beginning of a far more dangerous phase?