Evaluation of the military situation in
Northern Israel / Galilee according to
Hezbollah near sources => further down
While many Lebanese live in a state of anticipation and concern about the possibility of the expansion of the war with Israel, especially after Hezbollah confirmed that its response to the killing of its senior leader, Fouad Shukr, late last month (July 30) is inevitable, it seems that some Israeli military voices are rising in order to carry out a quick attack south of Lebanon.
The IDF's Northern Command has begun pushing for a more aggressive approach against Hezbollah, current and former Israeli officials have confirmed.
A senior Israeli security official said that "any disproportionate response by Hezbollah could lead to an Israeli attack that creates a new reality on Israel's northern border," according to the New York Times.
"Necessary justification"
Amos Yadlin, a former intelligence official and head of 'Mind Israel', a national security consultancy, said Israel should wait even after Hezbollah attack and its response to Shukr's killing to have the necessary justification for a quick and vigorous campaign that could cripple the Iranian-backed party in a matter of days or weeks with U.S. support.
"With the destruction of the bulk of Hamas's capabilities, it is time to move to the Lebanese-Israeli border," he claimed.
Invasion of southern Lebanon
This analysis is in line with some voices within the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has repeatedly called in the past to strike Allah and invade southern Lebanon, as have some members of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.
Yoav Kisch, Israel's education minister and a member of Netanyahu's coalition, said in a radio interview Sunday that he saw "no way to return residents to northern Israel without a strong war against Hezbollah within Lebanon."
Even a number of centrist Israeli politicians, such as National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, have called for hitting Lebanon's infrastructure, an offensive move likely to trigger a wider war.
War between Israel and Hezbollah has long been considered inevitable, and its outbreak is only a matter of timing, according to many security analysts.
But some argued that Hezbollah's response for now could give Tel Aviv the justification it needed to strike hard enough to prevent attacks for many years to come.
The analysis comes as Netanyahu's government is under immense pressure to repatriate more than 60,000 Israelis displaced from northern Israel to escape the Allah's near-daily attacks since Oct. 7.
It also coincides with leaks from officials of Iranian-backed factions and militias who reported that Tehran told them that it does not want to expand the war and confrontation with Israel, fearing that the latter will target nuclear sites inside the Iran.
The region has been witnessing an unprecedented escalation since the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh Israel on July 31 in Tehran, hours after Shukr's killing in the stronghold of the Allah Party in the Genovese suburb of Beirut, and both Iran and Hezbollah vowed to respond to these assassinations.
[العربية on August 15]
US envoy Hochstein says he thinks Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah can avoid war
..........
Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, landed in Beirut on Wednesday to deter an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, after the latter killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut's southern suburbs last month.
"We continue to believe that a diplomatic resolution is achievable because we continue to believe that no one truly wants a full-scale war between Lebanon and Israel," Hochstein said after talks with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a strong Hezbollah ally.
Hochstein's visit coincided with an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon's Tyre district on Wednesday around noon that left 10 people injured, including three in critical condition, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The U.S. envoy said he talked with Berri about the framework agreement on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, adding that a deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war.
[Reuters on August 14]
In depth translation of an X-Post
provided by 'Al-Menassa' [Tribune],
pro-Hezbollah news center in Lebanon
"Report broadcast by Channel #المنار [Al-Manar] detailing with numbers and information the importance of the northern region, industrially and economically, for Israel, especially for the advanced technology industry, which Secretary General of #حزب_الله [Hezbollah] Mr. #حسن_نصر_الله [Hassan Nasrallah] indicated could be destroyed within an hour or half an hour."
Editor's Note:
Al-Manar is a Hezbollah related TV station in Lebanon and
source of the reconnaissance video below. As to Hezbollah's
armory, Israel's liberal paper 'Haaretz' is estimating their
inventory to comprise 150,000 rockets.
Official propaganda video transmitted via Arabic news channels
is showing an extended underground missile armory containing
precision and non-precision rockets for every occasion:
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