If Israel and Hezbollah wanted open war, it would have happened long ago. Each side would welcome the destruction of the other, but the time is clearly not right for either side to plunge into full-scale conflict.

Sunday morning’s clashes along the Israeli-Lebanese border provided further evidence of this underlying reality.

In terms of ammunition consumption, it was the largest clash in many months. Israel launched 100 fighter jets and attacked more than 40 targets with missiles, killing only one person and wounding four others, according to figures released on Sunday afternoon.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have evidently been much more concerned about civilian casualties in Lebanon than in Gaza. While Israel insists it will fight until Hamas is completely destroyed, Foreign Minister Israel Katz stressed on Sunday that his government has no interest in such an existential struggle with Hezbollah.

According to its own version of events, Hezbollah fired 320 rockets and numerous drones on Sunday morning, but caused few casualties. The Lebanese Shiite militia nevertheless claimed to have achieved its goal: to avenge a commander killed by Israel last month. Its spokesman strained credibility by claiming its plans had been in no way affected by the earlier Israeli airstrikes, but the message was clearly aimed at drawing a line under the day’s hostilities and easing pressure on Hezbollah to continue the fight.

Both sides have compelling reasons not to go to war now. Israel does not have the stamina for another front, while it has not yet completely eliminated Hamas in Gaza, and the West Bank is being pushed to the brink of a major explosion of violence by hardline settlers and their supporters in the Israeli state.

Israeli commanders are also aware that a war against Hezbollah would be unwinnable without a ground offensive that would cost many Israeli soldiers their lives. Despite recent upgrades, Israeli tanks are still considered very vulnerable to ambushes.

Hezbollah’s leadership, in turn, must protect political and economic assets in Lebanon that would be destroyed in a war with Israel. The group’s regional patron, Iran, is also clearly unprepared for conflict and has postponed its threatened response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas politician Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Neither Hezbollah nor Iran share the apocalyptic, self-destructive impulses of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander in Gaza. Sinwar launched his surprise attack on Israel on October 7, mistakenly believing that his allies in Beirut and Tehran would join the fight.

Just because neither Israel nor Hezbollah wants war now does not mean it will not happen. Both sides use very primitive means – mainly explosives – to send messages to each other, and the risk of miscalculation is always high.

Israeli forces were reportedly on the verge of going to war in Lebanon immediately after October 7, as faulty intelligence suggested that Hezbollah was involved in the attack and its fighters were about to pour across the northern border.

The potential for unintended consequences was also high on Sunday. If the Israeli military’s account of events is correct, its warplanes blew up dozens of launch sites and thwarted planned Hezbollah rocket attacks on strategic targets in central Israel. Had one of those rockets hit a major city and caused significant casualties, the political pressure on the Netanyahu government to expel Hezbollah from southern Lebanon would have become easily irresistible.

The margin for error is likely to be greatest when each party tries to guess the other’s internal political dynamics. For example, when Israel killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike on southern Beirut last month, there was no way of knowing how many rockets or missiles Hezbollah thought would be enough to avenge him, or where to aim them.

Even though Hezbollah drove more than 80,000 Israelis from their homes through its cross-border bombings, it could not have foreseen the political pressure it would put on the Netanyahu coalition to take over southern Lebanon and let the displaced residents return. Public support for an invasion is already considerable, and besides, the Israeli prime minister has his own reasons for keeping his country at war and new elections at bay.

Amid this mutual recklessness, the United States is desperately trying to mitigate the risk. The Biden administration’s most important goal since Oct. 7 – and its most important achievement, U.S. officials argue – is preventing the Gaza war from becoming a regional conflagration.

Washington has urged its friends to exercise restraint as it moves its troops into the region to deter its enemies. The central strategy – or at least the essential hope – is that a hostage-for-peace deal in Gaza would also defuse the escalating confrontation on Israel’s northern border.

Talks will continue this week and American experts continue to insist that an agreement is within reach, despite recent evidence to the contrary. But there are serious doubts about whether Netanyahu or Sinwar really want an end to the fighting. War can break out without either side wanting it, but the same cannot be said for peace.