in its seventh carbon budget.

Israel is believed to have been behind this attack - so why might it have carried out this operation, and why last week? What does it say about how modern wars are conducted? And what can we expect to happen in the weeks to come - how likely is a ground war between Israel and Hezbollah?First of all, it’s important to understand exactly what Hezbollah is and where it comes from.

The group came into existence in the early 1980s after Israel occupied southern Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war.At first Hezbollah presented itself as a resistance group against Israel and the voice of Lebanon’s Shia community, says Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East Institute at SOAS University of London.How do the attacks alter the equation in the Middle East? David Aaronovitch and guests discuss the recent events in Lebanon.

But when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah kept its weapons in violation of a UN resolution requiring it to disarm. It continued to present itself as a necessary force for the defence of Lebanon and “became the country's most powerful political actor”, says Prof Khatib.Although it is represented in Lebanon’s government, Hezbollah’s real power lies behind the scenes, she adds - as an armed group that many analysts say is more powerful than the Lebanese army, it has the ability to intimidate its opponents.

“It is able to set the foreign policy agenda for Lebanon to a large extent, as well as declare war, basically, on behalf of Lebanon,” says Prof Khatib.

- the group’s “principal armourer”, according to Shashank Joshi, The Economist's defence editor. “There isn't simply a sort of immediate direct command, but they are very, very closely tied in aims and in practices.”"I was having to go to meetings and collect donations. I could just about hold it together. If I'd been crying, I'd put on dark glasses."

The stress and hardship soon took its toll on Amanda's health and she ended up in hospital with pneumonia.For most people, such a health scare would have been disastrous. But for Amanda, the hospital ward provided sanctuary.

"The hospital knew and they sort of pampered me a bit," she said."I was just glad of a bed and a bathroom. It was clean. It felt luxury to me."