Netanyahu threatens a “powerful” operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon | The Basque Journal

After eight months of war in Gaza and with the ceasefire proposal presented by Joe Biden in the air due to the lack of unity in the Government of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the northern border this Wednesday and announced that the army is preparing a “extremely powerful” response to Hezbollah attacks. The prime minister was determined to take a step forward on this front that the Lebanese militia keeps open to force the Jews not to be able to focus all their efforts on Hamas and where there is an exchange of fire every day. The first practical measure was the announcement of the mobilization of 50,000 new reservists, bringing the number of men called up to the ranks to 350,000.

“Anyone who thinks they can harm us and that we will stand by is deeply mistaken,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the town of Kiryat Shmona, evacuated since the Lebanese Shiite group began attacking Israeli communities and military posts along from the border almost daily. As is the case on the southern border, in the north there are more than 60,000 displaced people because the armed forces are incapable of guaranteeing their security against an enemy with more sophisticated means than Hamas. Netanyahu went to the region twenty-four hours after the head of the army, Herzi Halevi, who announced that “the decision on the appropriate response to Hezbollah is close.”

Although so far the attacks from both sides are limited in most cases to the border area, the situation could soon lead to a full-scale war. So far, 329 Lebanese militiamen and ten Israeli soldiers have died, and the entire border has become a combat zone. Hezbollah attacks with rockets and drones and one of its actions caused a serious fire on Monday, which took firefighters two days to extinguish.

The 2006 contest

The last major clash between the Shiite militia and the Jewish State occurred in 2006 and was 33 days of war in which more than 1,000 Lebanese and 43 Israelis died. Since then, the group close to Iran has fought in the war in Syria alongside Bashar al-Assad’s troops and experts point out that its men are a greater threat due to their intense combat experience, to which they add state-of-the-art weapons. that Tehran provides them.

The Lebanese front is complicated for Israel, which cooled the option of a Gaza truce a little more because the Government insisted on asking the United States for guarantees of having the option to return to the fighting when they deem it appropriate. Hamas stated that they do not intend to sign a document that does not include the end of the conflict and the withdrawal of enemy troops.

The bombings were intense for another day in Gaza in which the army launched a second ground operation against the Al-Bureij refugee camp, in the center of the Strip. As happened a month ago in Jabalia, to the north, the troops return to areas where they had considered Hamas defeated when they saw that the militants regained control after the withdrawal of the military.

Rafah remains blocked

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported the arrival of seventy dead and three hundred wounded at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, “the majority are women and children and the attacks have been indiscriminate,” in the words of Paulo Milanesio, emergency coordinator of the organization. Milanesio recalled that Rafah remains closed for another day and that in this way it is impossible to bring the medicines and equipment necessary to care for the wounded. This closure also makes it impossible for patients to go to hospitals abroad to try to save their lives.

The alarm messages are repeated every day, but Israel pays no attention and maintains a total blockade by land, sea and air. A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned that, if the war continues at this pace, “more than a million Palestinians could suffer the highest level of famine in mid-July. UN agencies denounced that “hunger in Gaza is being exacerbated by intense restrictions on access to aid and the collapse of the local food system.”

Israel does not want witnesses to this war and that is why it keeps the passage to Gaza closed to the international press and has killed a hundred Palestinian journalists and media workers. The Hebrews also seek international support and that is why, according to an investigation by ‘The New York Times’, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs invested millions of dollars in fake accounts on social networks to urge American legislators to fund the army. The campaign began in October and remains active on platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts posing as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.