The threat of Hizbullah can be seen from space

livemint.com:

a speech on November 3rd Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, appeared to show that he wanted to avoid engaging in an all-out war. Our satellite data show whether this rhetoric matches the reality on the ground (see map). The satellite data are updated twice daily, tallying large fires detected by FIRMS, a NASA satellite system that was originally designed to detect forest fires.

Using a machine-learning model, we are able to estimate whether events picked up by the satellites are related to fighting or non-war-related fires. Like any view of the war, it is imperfect and incomplete. But unlike other methods, it offers a consistent and neutral guide to probable military activity.

The data reveal two phases of conflict. The first was a significant uptick in war-related fires near Israel’s border with Lebanon and Syria, shortly after it launched its offensive on Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th. Hundreds of fires were detected along the border by the beginning of November, with particularly ferocious activity in late October (see chart).

But the second phase appears to show a significant decline in fighting since October 26th (though cloud cover over the past few weeks limited the satellites’ view). Since November 3rd there have been just a few events per day. This should calm fears of a wider conflagration, especially as the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, which Hizbullah warned would trigger an escalation, is already under way.