A flurry of violence hit Gaza Tuesday as Israel bombed a Gaza bank and targeted the homes of militants. Hamas responded with more than 100 rockets. NBC's Richard Engel reports. By Robert Windrem, NBC News senior investigative producer(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/121120-hezbollahMissile-vmed-442p.380;380;7;70;0.jpg)Mohammed Zaatari / AP fileHezbollah supporters fix the party's flag on top of their rockets near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, in this July 2007 photo.ANALYSIS
For a week, Israel and Hamas have engaged in a war in and around Gaza, one in which thousands of rockets and bombs have been expended, scores have died, and tens of thousands have been forced to take cover. But to the north in Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Islamic militia that rained destruction on Israel in a 2006 war, held its fire. Why?
Follow @NBCNewsWorld (http://twitter.com/NBCNewsWorld) The consensus among U.S. government analysts and academic experts is that Hezbollah, which has controlled the Lebanese government for more than four years, believes discretion is the better part of valor. As it has in the past, as in Israel's Cast Lead Operation against Hamas at the end of 2008, Hezbollah decided against creating a diversion that would have helped its like-minded but only sometime ally.
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