Israel threatens a “very intense” operation against Hezbollah on the Lebanese border

The drums of war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah sound increasingly louder. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to significantly escalate the conflict, as requested by military commanders, after eight months of increasing – but still measured – daily crossfire between both sides in parallel to the invasion of Gaza. “We are prepared for very strong action in the north,” the prime minister warned this Wednesday, during a visit to the border.

The Executive is also preparing to increase the quota of reservists that it can call up: from 300,000 (the peak for Gaza was 287,000, the largest in the country’s history) to 350,000 by the end of August. The army links it to the needs of the offensive in Rafah, but it comes just one day after the chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, assured that “the time is approaching” when the Government “will have to make a decision” about an offensive in the northern neighbor. He is supported by 71% of Israelis, according to a February poll by the newspaper Maarivso that the 60,000 evacuees from the border area can return to their homes, despite the fact that Hezbollah is an armed group much superior to Hamas and the risk of open, and even regional, war is greater.

“At the beginning of the war we said that we would restore security both in the south [la frontera con Gaza] like in the north, and that’s what we’re doing […] Anyone who thinks they can hurt us and that we will respond by staying still is making a big mistake. We are prepared for very intense action in the north. One way or another, we will restore security in the north,” he assured.

The element that seems to have tipped the balance is more emotional than tactical and was mentioned by Netanyahu in his speech. One of the explosive drones launched by Hezbollah, which has been perfecting its tactics to avoid the interception of its launches (drones, rockets and anti-tank projectiles), caused a fire last week that has filled the news and social networks with such shocking images for hours. as symbolic. Without sufficient means to extinguish it and with the extreme right calling to make Lebanon burn as one of the greenest areas of Israel did, the tone changed.

Netanyahu convened in an extraordinary manner on Tuesday night the war cabinet, with the military leadership by videoconference, to analyze both the situation on the Lebanese border and the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza. And the Minister of Finance, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich, called for “returning Lebanon to the Stone Age.” As he wanted to remember, the phrase was not his invention, but rather the one used as a warning a year ago by the head of Defense, Yoav Gallant. Added to this is the pressure and feeling of oblivion of the evacuees from the border area. Thousands have returned to their towns, despite the danger, and tens of thousands more have moved into apartments, tired of living for so long in a hotel paid for by the public treasury.

An agreement not to return to the ‘status quo’

The United States has just urgently sent CIA chief William Burns to Israel, a few days after President Joe Biden said that “the time has come to end” the war in Gaza. The idea is that calm in Gaza is the key that opens the door to an agreement between Israel and Hezbollah that avoids a war.

Hezbollah has reiterated since October that it will stop firing as soon as Israel stops bombing Gaza. But the political and military leadership in the Jewish State would no longer be satisfied with returning to the status quo prior to October 7 attack. Now he experiences as an existential threat the presence of armed men from Hezbollah on the other side of the border (in violation of a United Nations resolution that Israel also fails to comply with on a daily basis) with the risk that they will launch a surprise attack like Hamas that day. And, once Israel no longer needs so many troops inside the devastated Gaza, it can get into another war and deal with more fronts, if the Houthis from Yemen, the pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq or the West Bank come into play at the same time. heats up even more.

American-Israeli Amos Hochstein leads the search for a diplomatic agreement that moves Hezbollah’s elite forces away from the border and determines the land border, since Lebanon has reservations about the Israeli withdrawal line, which thousands of blue helmets monitor under the baton of a Spaniard, Aroldo Lázaro, with one of the two sectors in command of Spain. Hochstein is a senior advisor to Biden who forged in 2022 (when the prime minister in Israel was Yair Lapid) an important agreement on the maritime border of Israel and Lebanon for gas exploitation. In a recent interview with the Carnegie think tank, based in Washington, Hochstein admitted that it would no longer be enough for Hezbollah to stop shooting if there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. An agreement is needed to sustain that calm.

In southern Lebanon, the Israeli army has used artillery shells containing white phosphorus during these months against residential buildings in at least five towns, according to an investigation released this Tuesday by the human rights organization Amnesty International. International law prohibits its use against civilians or in areas densely populated by civilians, although Israel has not signed the Geneva Convention protocol that regulates it.

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