According to officials, Israel is prepared for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has authorization for an offensive that will target Hezbollah.
Following Hezbollah’s release of ominous drone footage late on Tuesday, Israel’s foreign minister and military made their claims. The rising hostilities coincide with US attempts to prevent an escalation during months of low-key fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border.
“Israel is prepared for a “total war” with Lebanon.”
The nine-minute drone video, which was shot during the day in the Israeli port city of Haifa, featured both military and civilian locations, including shopping centres and residential neighbourhoods, as well as a complex used for manufacturing weapons and missile defence systems.
Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, reacted sharply to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in a post on X, criticising him for bragging about filming the ports of Haifa, which are run by foreign businesses from China and India.
“The decision to alter the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon is rapidly approaching. Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely damaged in an all-out war, the author wrote.
Ori Gordin, the commander of Israel’s Northern Command, which oversees the front line with Hezbollah, has authorised plans to launch a ground assault across Israel’s northern border, the Israeli military said in a statement later.
“Decisions were made regarding the continuation of increasing the readiness of troops in the field, and operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated as part of the situational assessment,” the statement read.
Soon after the attacks on October 7, which initiated the Gaza War, Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting along their border. With both sides declaring they are prepared for war, the conflict is getting more and more intense.
An afternoon speech by Nasrallah is planned for Wednesday. Hezbollah will only cease its attacks, he has previously stated, if Israel stops its invasion of Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 37,000 Palestinians.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the Israeli military has been attacking Lebanon with aircraft on a regular basis. It asserted on Tuesday that it had struck military installations in several southern regions of the nation.
It claimed on Monday that a drone strike had killed a “central operative” in Hezbollah’s rocket division. It had killed Taleb Abdullah a week earlier. He was supposedly the head of a Hezbollah division that occupied the western portion of the front line between the Litani River and the Israeli border.
In an apparent attempt to help the Palestinians, Hezbollah recently claimed to have conducted more than 2,100 military operations against Israel since October 8.
Over the past eight months, over 400 people have died in Lebanon, including journalists and paramedics; 25 of those deaths have occurred in Israel. More than 60,000 people have been ejected from their homes in northern Israel, and at least 90,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon.
During a visit to Lebanon on Tuesday, White House envoy Amos Hochstein stated that the US is attempting to stop the situation from getting worse diplomatically.
“Over the past several weeks, there has been an increase.” And following meetings in Israel the day before, Hochstein told reporters in Beirut that President Biden wished to prevent a further escalation to a more serious conflict.
[Al Jazeera]
