The Israel National News website Monday reported that “Israel’s defense establishment is preparing for the worst-case scenario during a war on the northern border, which would include days-long blackouts, hundreds dead, and thousands wounded.”

Israel faces potentially thousands of rockets fired against her on the first day, with as many as 6,000 rockets coming in on the first few days. As time progresses, the number would drop to “about only 1,500 to 2,000 rockets a day”.

This unsettling article followed news that four Syrian soldiers were killed, four more wounded, and extensive material damage was done in what Damascus says was an Israel missile strike near the capital early Monday.

While it took place in Syria, and it is believed that it was that country’s soldiers that were killed, Israeli military action in the large Arab state that sits north-east of the Golan Heights is understood to be directed against Iranian, not Syrian, targets.

Israel has seldom admitted to carrying out the reportedly hundreds of attacks in recent years that have been aimed at retarding the formation of a crescent Iran-Syria-Lebanon axis against the Jewish state.

Recent days have seen a number of reports – here, here and here – indicating growing tensions on the Lebanon-Israel frontier. In a warning to the United Nations Security Council five days ago, Israel called the situation “a powder keg”.