Israel’s furious assault on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon is the start of a prolonged military campaign to fundamentally alter the balance of power on Israel’s northern border.
This new offensive is likely to be long, bloody and controversial. No doubt Israel will overreach at times, just as it did in its war with Hamas in Gaza and let’s hope these instances are rare, but the moral culpability for everything which is unfolding in Lebanon right now belongs with Hezbollah.
The Iranian-backed terror group has provoked this larger response from Israel through its relentless almost year-long low level bombardment of northern Israel, where more than 8000 rockets and drones have been fired across the Lebanese border since last October.
Israel does not want a war with Hezbollah and it certainly does not want to invade and occupy southern Lebanon. But the terror group has left Israel with no choice but to take action to force Hezbollah to end its daily attacks into Northern Israel.
Israel’s aim here is simply to damage Hezbollah enough so that it is either persuaded or forced to end its daily attacks on Israel. Israel rightly demands that the 60,000 Israelis displaced since last October from their homes near the country’s northern border with Lebanon be allowed to return safely.
IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari exposing Hezbollah’s way of firing missiles from civilian homes, and how the IDF plans on dismantling it: pic.twitter.com/smkfjv6VDh
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 23, 2024
Hezbollah has made this impossible ever since Hamas’ massacre of Israelis on October 7 when it launched a low level daily barrage into Israel in solidarity with Hamas.
Having tolerated this unsustainable situation for eleven months, while Israeli forces were preoccupied with fighting Hamas in Gaza, Israel has had enough.
It understandably wants peace from rocket attacks on its northern border and it also wants to prevent the kind of Hamas-style cross-border invasion into northern Israel so it has to somehow push Hezbollah’s military out of southern Lebanon.
The critical question now is how Hezbollah responds? The terror group appears stunned by the ferocity of the series of attacks by Israel over the past week, starting with the hi-tech attack of booby-trapped Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies and then the assassination in Beirut of a cabal of senior Hezbollah commanders. Now Israel has unleashed its biggest and deadliest bombing raids against Hezbollah targets since 2006 with warnings that it will continue to attack for as long as it needs to.
Hezbollah has been gravely weakened, but certainly not broken by these attacks and it has vowed to retaliate against Israel. It also vows to continue to attack Israel until a ceasefire deal is concluded with Hamas.
IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari exposing Hezbollah’s way of firing missiles from civilian homes, and how the IDF plans on dismantling it: pic.twitter.com/smkfjv6VDh
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 23, 2024
But Israel’s new offensive against Hezbollah makes it clear that Israel will not tolerate this. Something has to give. It is now up to Hezbollah whether it really wants a full-scale war with Israel, something which the terror group has so far tried to avoid.
Hezbollah’s masters in Iran will be deeply concerned by the ferocity of Israel’s offensive. Iran needs a viable Hezbollah to give it military leverage in its never-ending vendetta against Israel’s existence.
But by having refused to stop shelling Israel before now, Hezbollah suddenly finds itself in too deep. It has provoked Israel’s wrath and must now choose how to escape this situation without triggering a full blown and bloody conflict which could end up crippling the long term viability of the terror group.
No side wants a full-blown war, but Hezbollah has pushed Israel too far. It only has itself to blame for the damage which Israel is now wreaking upon it.
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