Israel Preparing For War With Hezbollah

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Israel has made clear it is preparing for war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after its military operations against Hamas in Gaza have ended.

Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz spoke about Israel’s plans on Monday in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israeli and U.S. officials confirmed.

“The international community must act against the state of Lebanon to stop the aggression in the border area,” said Gantz, a member of the Israeli War Cabinet, according to a readout from his office.

Earlier, Israel’s National Security Adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, indicated over the weekend that once Hamas is defeated in Gaza, Israel may have to go to war against Hezbollah.

Hanegbi focused his attention on clashes across the northern border of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

He made clear that Israel’s prime concern after the killing of 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas on October 7 was Hezbollah’s Radwan force in neighboring Lebanon.

Hanegbi warned that they could attempt a similar “murderous invasion” as Hamas, targeting civilians in communities near the border.

‘17 YEARS LATE’

Israel, he stressed, was tackling Hamas “17 years too late,” and it could no longer dare to tolerate the danger of prevailing with Hezbollah’s forces in Lebanon at the border.

Some 60,000 residents of border communities in northern Israel near Lebanon have been evacuated since October 7 amid sometimes deadly clashes across the border between Hezbollah and Israel, authorities say.

“Residents will not return if we don’t do the same thing” in the north against Hezbollah as is being done in the south [in Gaza] against Hamas, Hanegbi told Israeli media.

“We can no longer accept [Hezbollah’s elite] Radwan force sitting on the border. We can no longer accept Resolution 1701 not being implemented,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 television.

He referred to a United Nations Security Council resolution from 2006, at the end of the Second Lebanon War, that barred any Hezbollah presence within almost 30 kilometers (19 miles) of the border with Israel.

Hanegbi’s comments came shortly before smoke billowed across the horizon along the hills in southern Lebanon from Israeli bombardments. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said tanks and a fighter jet struck several Hezbollah sites in south Lebanon since Sunday after repeated attacks “by the terror group” on northern Israel.

Separately, an attack helicopter hit an anti-tank missile squad preparing to attack Israel’s northern community of Yiftah, the IDF said. The IDF also explained that it shelled an area in southern Lebanon near the northern Israeli community of Menara after identifying a “suspicious movement.”

MORE ROCKETS FIRED

On Monday morning, at least six rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel and were intercepted by the Iron Dome, the IDF added. The military responded with artillery fire targeting several locations along the Lebanese border.

As clashes intensified, a Hezbollah legislator warned that Israeli airstrikes that caused widespread damage in the town of Aitaroun near the Israeli-Lebanese border on Sunday were a “new escalation.”

Hassan Fadlallah warned that Hezbollah would respond to the “escalation” in new ways, be it “in the nature of the weapons [used] or the targeted sites” in Israel.

His words suggested that Israel would face even broader battles with its neighbors at a time when the Jewish nation and others in the region cope with a mounting death toll linked to the horrors of warfare.

While focused on Lebanon, the expected upcoming war with Hezbollah was also due to involve other nearby nations, including Syria, where Israeli strikes near Syria’s capital killed at least two Hezbollah fighters and two Syrians working with the Lebanese group, sources said.

The well-informed Britain-based Observatory, which is close to the Syrian opposition, said Monday that two Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and two Syrian guards” were killed in the overnight strikes. Three other “fighters” and three civilians added to the Observatory, which relies on an extensive network of sources inside Syria.

Separately, Hezbollah said Monday that two of its fighters were killed without specifying where or when it happened. But a source close to Hezbollah, requesting anonymity, was quoted as saying by French News Agency AFP that the pair were killed in Syria.

HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERS DIE

Earlier, three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in southern Syria, the Observatory recalled.

Damascus’s international airport was out of service Monday after successive Israeli strikes targeted the facility, witnesses said.

While Hezbollah attacks were significant, Minister Dantz also discussed the ongoing Gaza fighting with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken amid mounting concerns in Washington over the rising death toll among Palestinians.

Blinken and Gantz “discussed ongoing efforts to facilitate the safe return of all remaining hostages, further increase levels of humanitarian assistance, and prevent the conflict from expanding,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Dantz also expresses his “profound appreciation” for the U.S. veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas, Israel’s government recalled.

Yet Blinken “stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank and reiterated that Israel must take all possible measures to avoid civilian harm,” Miller stressed.

Blinken also “emphasized that the United States remains committed to advancing tangible steps towards the realization of a Palestinian state,” Miller recalled.

FUTURE ROLE UNCERTAIN

Blinken’s decision “to sidestep his Israeli counterpart—Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen—and call Gantz” comes amid reported disagreements between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Both leaders have different views over post-war plans for the Gaza Strip, Israeli media commented.

There is especially disagreement about what role, if any, the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority will play.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly opposes a Palestinian Authority-controlled Gaza Strip.

However, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly views the Palestinian Authority’s oversight over the enclave as the best alternative.

Blinken earlier urged Gantz to discuss “efforts to augment and accelerate the transit of critical humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”

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