When questioned about the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told Lebanese news station NTV on Aug. 27, "We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a confrontation at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not." Hezbollah's first rocket attack on Haifa, not the kidnapping, compelled Israel to engage in an invasion for which it was not necessarily prepared. Nasrallah knew when he pushed hostilities to that point that Hezbollah was provoking Israel into a full-scale war, and he had his forces ready and entrenched to resist the onslaught.