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Israel announced last week that it continued to escalate its attacks in Lebanon, as analysts wrote last week that an all-out war between the two sides “is no longer a remote possibility.”
The IDF announced Saturday that it struck Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon, “including operational military headquarters,” according to The Jerusalem Post. Israel posted a strike on X.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported on Saturday that at least five people were killed in one strike on Saturday in southern Lebanon, including four from the same family. The outlet said a strike on a house in the Khirbet Selm killed a couple and their two children, and one other person. The mother was pregnant.
Eylon Levy, a spokesman for the Israeli government, posted on X after the strike, “Don’t take your eyes off Lebanon. Throughout the day, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced for five months and can’t go home. Earlier, IDF fighter jets struck several Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon.”
Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, the head of the IDF’s Northern Command, discussed Israel’s “readiness to launch an attack in Lebanon.”
“Our commitment—my commitment—is to change the security situation to ensure residents return to their homes,” he said, according to the paper.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire for months in what has been described as a low-burning war. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense head, indicated that he is willing to go to war with Hezbollah to push its “forces” south of the Litani River to the north before Israeli residents on the already stolen land there move back into their homes.
TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that Israel routinely uses its “security concerns” as justification to steal more land. (See “ISRAEL SPEEDS UP PACE OF NEW SETTLEMENTS IN WEST BANK” 5 Mar 2024, “ISRAEL CONTINUES CRACKDOWN IN THE WEST BANK” 27 Feb 2024, and “U.S. TELLS ICJ: ISRAEL CAN KEEP ITS STEALING OF PALESTINIAN LAND”27 Feb 2024.)
Limor Son Har-Melech, labeled as a “far-right Israeli settler from Otzma Yehudit, the extremist party” by the mainstream media, called for Israel to turn Gaza into one large settlement after the bombing campaign ends, which is in line with many in the government.
“There is no escape from returning and fully controlling the Gaza Strip, full control that will include extensive and flourishing settlement in the entire strip,” she told a conference named “Returning to the Gaza Strip.” She continued, “Not like the Gush Katif settlements that were concentrated in a few isolated areas, but settlements for the entire length and width of the strip.”
‘War Is More Expected Than Ever’
Lebanese Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Maroun Hitti said in a phone interview with Breaking Defense that the “prospective escalation of war is more expected than ever.”
“As long as Israel considers Hezbollah an existential threat, a ground offensive is more probable,” he said.
Israeli Channel 12 reported that Hezbollah is launching rockets to test the country’s defense systems and to prevent illegal settlers from returning to their homes on stolen land.
Nir Dvori, a military commentator from the outlet, reported that Hezbollah has been firing about 30 rockets at a time toward Kiryat Shmona and was not intended to hit military personnel or settlers. He said these strikes seemed intended to test Iron Dome.
TRENDPOST: Amos Hochstein, a U.S. special envoy, said any possible truce between Israel and Hamas will likely not have any impact on what’s brewing along Israel’s northern border.
“It does not necessarily happen that when you have a ceasefire in Gaza, it just automatically extends,” he said, according to AntiWar.com.
In 2006, Israel squared off with Hezbollah and, when the fight was over, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, said the conflict showed that Israel is a spider web: you just blow on it, and it disappears.
Nasrallah said earlier that the deployment of U.S. assets into the region after the Hamas attack showed that Israel cannot “stand on its own two feet.”
Norman Finkelstein, the Israeli/Palestinian scholar, said Nasrallah gave another speech after the 7 October and said, “Israel is weaker than a spider web.”
Finkelstein said Israel is now focused on restoring its deterrence capacity, which he said is just a technical way of saying: get the Arab world afraid of us.