Israel’s war aims in Lebanon are expanding

Last month, near the smouldering wreckage of a house in Aitou, a Christian village in Lebanon, an ancient cedar was festooned with money. A young man shuffled up its trunk, plucking bank notes from its branches. Hours earlier an official from Hizbullah, a Lebanese militia backed by Iran, had arrived at the house where people who had been displaced from southern Lebanon were sheltering. He had brought armfuls of cash in an effort to demonstrate that, despite the war, the group can still look after its followers.