The Middle East spirals out of control!

If the past is any indication, that stuff never really lasts long. Israel usually blows up a number of old Soviet tanks, kill a few soldiers and civilians, perhaps down a few MiGs, then things settle down after a while. I'm not saying that those deaths aren't a tragedy, but for the time at hand it hasn't even officially been turned in a war, and if it does, it won't last long.

I'm not sure what exactly could really make the shit hit the fan. As long as a nuke doesn't explode somewhere, I don't think it'll degenerate.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah, I suspect the reason they took those soldiers is that after the capture of that first guy a month or so ago, they noticed it produced an unusually strong reaction with Israel. They probably thought that while Israel had gone with a substantial strike force in Palestine, they wouldn't do the same in Lebanon, a fully independent country. Seems like they were wrong.

Now the thing is, those hostages are something they'd probably want to get rid of after seeing what happened. The problem is that returning them wouldn't be seen too well by the more radical people associated to the kidnappers' cause, if they're not the ones behind it. Killing them is no good: if they don't present proof that the hostages are dead, Israel will continue their operations, and if they do, by sending a few severed heads back to Israel or whatever else, well, no good can come out of that either. Seems like those hostages have become a liability.

The worst case scenario here, baring a nuke going off as I said earlier, is probably something like what Styphon said. If they move the hostages in Syria then it might become a bigger problem. I suppose it's not entirely out of question; if their initial plan was to use Lebanon as a shield, and that failed, they might seek a bigger shield. What happens then is unclear. Of course it's not limited to Syria, the initial article mentioned something about the potential transfer of the hostages in Iran. That would be particularly... entertaining. It likely wouldn't take long for a "stray" squad of israeli aircrafts to "accidentally" open fire on Iran's nuclear facilities. I mean, if Israel is already there, might has well take advantage of it, and that might just please the EU enough that there isn't too much condemnation from them. But that's pretty much just speculation for now.

There's nowhere I can't reach.