I resolved this as yes. I should have resolved it earlier. I agree that this wasn't the best formed question/market but i have some precedent here.

it should not be YES right now. Killing HN (and others via assassination) may not cause an escalade of conflict. That at least destroyed most of Hez's ability of attack (not defence), now it's possible that Israel feel good about current result and not invade south lebanon like in Gaza, and I think the criteria "go to war (for israel)" should means "a war like what they did in gaza". (I hold Yes for that elsewhere and here, but 99% is too high). Killing Haniyya have caused a cooling down with Iran, killing HN possibly the same.

@FrostTao HN is degrees of magnitude more significant than anyone in Hamas. Hamas is also much less a direct subsidiary of Iran than Hezbollah. HN was essentially Iran’s front line commander. And as I mentioned below, senior IRGC general(s) were also killed in the same attack on Hezbollahs underground command center.

This is pretty unambiguous at this point. Should resolve yes for sure. @mods

@datachef like decimating Hezbollahs leadership with huge bombings that kill literally hundreds is certainly a “wartime activity”. Please resolve. @mods

@traders anyone have any arguments that this shouldn't resolve YES right now?

@jacksonpolack nice! If we waited much longer there might be no Hezbollah left and that would be a strange edge case.

@jacksonpolack I think ultimately it probably should resolve YES but I think ppl were waiting for some big red line that crossed from the “special operations” that had been going on for months (maybe decades even) into some “war” that involved like, tanks, invasion, etc. However, that never happened and instead it was just a slow and steady increase in these special operations. But at some point between then and now, the criteria for “war” has probably been met? Idk I think markets like these could have used better resolution criteria from the start, tbh, but that’s a learning moment hopefully (jk no one will learn anything and everyone will keep making markets without descriptions).

@benshindel killing HN this week is when the criteria was met. I think we have also crossed into ambiguity about whether or not Israel and Iran are at war. Killing HN was a really big fucking deal.

@datachef why did that cross the line and not the previous 5 killings of high-level Hezbollah officials? Seems arbitrary. Also why would that action make Israel and Iran at war?

@jacksonpolack Agreed, it should resolve YES. Netanyahu referred to it as a war and it seems pretty obviously “wartime military action” (though that’s a super ambiguous phrase).

@benshindel The spokesperson from the IDF that does those video briefings has explicitly said that Helzbollah had joined Hamas war against Israel. And talked about their "war in Gaza". It adds up to them calling it a war with Hezbollah imo.

@Helado https://youtu.be/a6KUAB4kSCI?t=175

@jacksonpolack It's strange if this resolves now while markets like /strutheo/will-israel-declare-war-on-hezbolla are still ongoing.

Please note I said "strange", not "wrong".

What counts as "wartine military action" isn't easy to tell. A lot that has happened in the Middle East in the past would probably have been interpreted as "wartime military action", had it happened e.g. in Korea.

@Primer my dudes, Hassan Hasrallah was the leader of the entire militant resistance against Israel for 30 years. This was a directly provocative act that extends way beyond Hezbollah and directly confronts Iran. HN was killed alongside a high ranking IRGC general. Israel is calling Iran’s bluff by purposely escalating. I think the burden should be on people who don’t think this is wartime activity.

Market with nearly identical resolution criteria (that's at 80% currently):

https://manifold.markets/JCDM/will-israel-and-lebanonhezbollah-go-542882699778?play=true

You can't really argue that what Israel has been doing isn't "wartime military action"

Netanyahu calls it a war:

@mods this requires some mod action

@nikki If there is no immediate resolution, it would be great if someone could get @MarcusAbramovitch to clarify the meaning of "wartime military action", at least.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that apparently intense airstrikes killing hundreds is not necessarily considered a wartime in military action. What a world we live in.

@DanielFox9fff Yeah I don't understand how this hasn't resolved YES. "Wartime military action" obviously includes week-long strategic bombing, not just ground invasion as some other markets are based on.

@zsig I also want to point out that the absence of a ground invasion does not mean that Israel is holding back. It just turns out that they are far superior in the air and they have incredibly good intel about the location of weapons and Hezbollah leaders.

@DanielFox9fff if we already assumed Hezbollah launching ten thousand rockets at Israel over the last year wasn't enough to qualify, what's a few more airstrikes

@DanielFox9fff and thus we get a ridiculous reality where clear acts of war are normalized as not a "real" war, somehow making this a gray area. Such cases are why it's very important to have precise resolution criteria. @MarcusAbramovitch What's a wartime action by your standards if not widespread intense airstrikes killing hundreds?

@ShakedKoplewitz The number of strikes per day is far higher, the number of casualties too. The strikes on both sides reach much further into the country. There has been a strike on Tel-Aviv and strikes on Beirut seem routine by now. Israel is openly talking about a possible ground invasion and I have not yet seen any of the usual claims that this would cross another red line, which suggests that Hezbollah might already have reached full escalation.

Certainly, there is a line somewhere between casual rocket exchanges on the border and bombing the whole country to the ground, where it starts to qualify as war. Where would you put that line?

@Sodann I'd put the "war" line before this, at the point where Hezbollah started regularly bombing Israeli civilian (or heck, even military) targets sometime last October.

If that doesn't qualify as a war I'd say we're already in absurdity town, might as well hold out for a ground war.

@DanielFox9fff Not quite killing of not quite civilians reported by not quite journalists... What a time to be (not quite) alive!

@DanielFox9fff This really illustrates how insane the situation is Israel finds itself in. Imagine hundreds of rockets being fired daily between North and South Korea or any "normal" countries like France and the UK. It of course would be considered a war. Yet because Israel has to ensure this with some regularity and its enemies refuse to wear uniforms and separate themselves from civilians it's somehow ambiguous.