Lebanon's top diplomat says Hezbollah unlikely to respond to Beirut strike in way that sparks wider war

Lebanon’s foreign minister said Hezbollah is unlikely to escalate against Israel in a way that could drag the Mediterranean country into an all-out war against its southern neighbour. 

In an interview on CNN, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said Hezbollah alone held the power to decide how it would respond to an Israeli strike against a senior Hamas official in a Beirut suburb that is its stronghold.

“We hope they don’t commit themselves to a larger war… We have a lot of reasons to think that this will not happen,” he said, adding that Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister was in constant touch with the group.