On Thursday, Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz told mayors in northern Israel to prepare for war, as eight months of managed hostilities with Lebanese militant faction Hezbollah threatened to explode.
“Prepare for more difficult days,” said Mr Gantz, a former general and defence minister, according to Israeli media. “This could lead to war.”
Cross-border exchanges and rhetoric between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated in recent days. A Hezbollah drone strike on Wednesday killed an Israeli soldier and injured at least 10 others. Israel carried out a series of air strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday and claimed to have eliminated several enemy fighters.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised a “very intense operation” on a visit to the north on Wednesday. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff, Lt-Gen Herzi Halevi, said the army was ready to “move to an attack in the north”.
Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the group was not seeking to expand the conflict but any escalation would result in “devastation, destruction and displacement” in Israel.
Eight months of skirmishes at the border that began with the outbreak of war in Gaza have taken a heavy toll. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. Hezbollah says it has lost about 300 fighters, and dozens of Lebanese civilians have been killed. Israel has not revealed losses but at least 12 soldiers have been killed as well as several civilians.
Hezbollah rockets have sparked ongoing wildfires across thousands of acres in the Galilee region of northern Israel. The Lebanese government claims much of its southern farmland has been destroyed by Israeli fire, including use of white phosphorus that may constitute a war crime, according to Human Rights Watch.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006 that ended inconclusively with a UN peacekeeping force along the border. Hezbollah waged guerrilla warfare against Israel during its occupation of parts of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000.
Only the distraction of Gaza prevents a full-scale Israeli operation against its longtime adversary, says Yoni Ben Menachem, an Israeli military analyst.
“Dismantling the military infrastructure of Hamas is the first priority of the government,” he said. “After that I think war in the north is inevitable.”
Moshe Roth, an MP who sits on Israel’s foreign affairs and defence committee, said escalation in Lebanon could follow a truce in Gaza.
“Although there is internal pressure to go all out against Hezbollah, Israel will not escalate operations in Lebanon more than absolutely necessary,” he said. “Israel will try to avoid a full scale war on two fronts.
“After the situation in Gaza quietens down, Israel will be more inclined to give a decisive blow to Hezbollah.”
An Israeli military blogger known as Gaza War Unit Tracker posted on Wednesday a predicted outline for an assault on southern Lebanon around August that would involve 18,000 soldiers in 12 brigades, more than were deployed in the 2006 war.
The US has led diplomatic efforts to contain the Gaza conflict from spreading to Lebanon and beyond, with ongoing talks over implementation of UN Resolution 1701 that could see Hezbollah troops retreat from the border and Israel take steps such as ending fighter jet flights over Lebanon.
Washington has reportedly warned Israel that a war in Lebanon could draw in Hezbollah’s ally, Iran, and spread across the region.
Israeli military analysts acknowledge that Hezbollah is a more formidable adversary than it was in 2006, or Hamas ever was. The group has thousands of missiles capable of striking every location in Israel, and is the most powerful member of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance” that includes Hamas, the Houthis of Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.
Michael Young, senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center based in Lebanese capital Beirut, said a war can still be avoided and both sides may have an eye to a resolution.
“I see this escalation partly in terms of deterrence capabilities,” he said. “Both sides want to strengthen their hand for eventual negotiations.”
While Israeli rhetoric has grown more heated, the threats are not new, Mr Young notes. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, threatened to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age” last August – before the outbreak of war in Gaza.
Rhetoric has yet to be matched by actions, and Israel will be aware of the risks of escalation, he said.
“We don’t have a large concentration of Israeli forces on the northern border, and I don’t get a sense that the Israelis are preparing for an imminent invasion of south Lebanon,” he said.
“There is no clear end game. Are they going to invade and destroy all of Lebanon? I don’t think they have the capacity. And I don’t think they have support from the US to do that.
“The Israeli government is saying it wants to increase security on the northern border so they can bring Israelis back to the north. If there is a major war along the border it’s going to destroy significant parts of northern Israel and they won’t be able to bring anyone back for years.”
So far, hostilities are still broadly within understood terms of engagement that have evolved between the sides to manage escalation over decades, said Mr Young, noting: “Israel is not bombing Beirut. Hezbollah is not bombing Haifa.”
Hezbollah joined hostilities after the Gaza war began as part of the “Unity of Fronts” principle that requires members of the Axis of Resistance to work together against their common enemy, Israel, he said, but has since calibrated attacks carefully despite losing hundreds of fighters.
A return to the status quo of regular skirmishes will offer little relief to either side, says Mr Young, suggesting that all parties should strive for a “formal ending to the conflict”.
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