IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said yesterday that war against Hezbollah was increasingly likely. The Times of Israel reported: “With visiting troops drilling for a simulated offensive inside Lebanon, as the army winds down its most intense stages of fighting in Gaza, Halevi said Israel was ‘increasing readiness for fighting in Lebanon’.... The IDF has ‘a very clear goal in Lebanon—to return the residents to the north, all the communities in the north…. I don’t know when the war in the north is,” he was quoted as saying. “I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past. We have a lot of lessons from the fighting in Gaza. Many of them are very relevant to fighting in Lebanon.”
NBC had reported, also yesterday, sources informing them that the only concession Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu made to U.S. Secretary of State Blinken last week, was that Israel would not attempt a large-scale action against Hezbollah.
Hamas claimed to have fired missiles into northern Israel yesterday; Israel said that all were either intercepted or hit open spaces. The IDF said that, to “remove threats,” they struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon throughout the day, that tanks shelled an area in Ayta ash-Shab and artillery shelled an area in Dhayra.
Israel insists that Hezbollah withdraw from the border to north of the Litani River, per 2006 UN Resolution 1701, and that it will make that happen by force if necessary. Hassan Nasrallah, a leader of Hezbollah, identifies Israel’s war on Gaza as the reason for the conflict on the border and accuses Israel of wanting to launch a war on Lebanon.
