Moon of Alabama
On October 8, a day after Hamas attacked Israel, the Lebanese Hezbollah joined the fray. It sent missiles towards military installations in north Israel. 80,000 Israeli settler living in the north fled from their homes. They are still sitting in hotels around Israel and are waiting for the return of quietness to that front.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had announced that the current northern tit-for-tat campaign between Hezbollah and Israeli forces would continue until a permanent ceasefire is agreed upon in Gaza.
But the radicals in charge of Israeli policies do not want a ceasefire in Gaza. They want to eradicate Hamas and as much of the Gazan population as possible. A ceasefire would prevent them from doing so.
On the other hand there is pressure from northern settlers who want to return to their homes. But without a ceasefire in Gaza the low level conflict in Israel's north and southern Lebanon is bound to continue.
Instead of working towards a ceasefire in Gaza the Israeli military and government are planning to invade southern Lebanon and to occupy it up to the Litani river.
The plan is delusional. Hezbollah is grounded in the Shia communities which inhabit south Lebanon. Is Israel expecting that population to move out? That is not going to happen.
Hezbollah, with its number of forces exceeding 100,000 men, is well prepared for a fight. South Lebanon is criss-crossed with well prepared fighting positions and tunnels. More than 150,000 missiles, many of them long range, are ready to be launched against military and economic targets in Israel. The 2006 invasion of south Lebanon ended in an utter defeat for the Israeli army. There is no reason to believe that a renewed fight would have a different outcome.
In case of a new conflict Hezbollah has plans to cross the border and to occupy parts of northern Israel. It is also ready to expand a war should this be necessary:
The leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, warned of a war “without rules or ceilings” in the event of a full-scale Israeli offensive against the Lebanese militia, as he threatened that Cyprus could become a target if it allowed Israel to use its territory in any conflict.
Cyprus and Israel have a bilateral defence cooperation agreement which has seen the countries conduct joint exercises.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” the Hezbollah chief said.
Nikos Christodoulides, the island’s president, responded on Wednesday evening: “Cyprus remains uninvolved in any military conflicts and positions itself as part of the solution rather the problem.”
Starting a war with Hezbollah may well spell the end of Israel as a settler state. Missile attacks on its infrastructure and military will lessen the confidence the settlers still may have in the Zionist state. Many are likely to return to their home countries if a conflict endures.
Despite such danger to its Zionist project the U.S. administration is backing any and all Israeli plans:
The US has indicated it is open to backing an Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, amid mounting frustration that the group continues to link a truce with Israel to an elusive broader ceasefire in Gaza. [Pentagon has sent a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group to the Mediterranean Sea. There are credible rumors that the Pentagon has placed several thousand troops in Lebanon.]
In his meetings in Beirut on Tuesday, US envoy Amos Hochstein delivered "blunt" warnings to Lebanese officials that Israel is preparing to launch a limited offensive on Hezbollah and will have the US's support if a diplomatic solution isn't found, a senior Arab official told Middle East Eye.
Hochstein met with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri on Tuesday, both of whom the US has used as intermediaries with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group the US designates a terrorist organisation.
Hochstein told Lebanese officials that Israel anticipates roughly five more weeks of intense fighting in Gaza, after which it will pause its main offensive across the enclave. However, it will continue to target senior Hamas officials and conduct attacks to recover hostages.
From the perspective of the current Israeli government a continuation of the war on Gaza requires an additional war in Lebanon:
Hochstein warned that once fighting in Gaza pauses, Israeli officials intend to turn their full focus to the northern border with the aim of pushing Hezbollah back from the area so the roughly 60,000-96,000 displaced Israelis can return to their homes before the start of school in the fall.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since 8 October, but the conflict ratcheted up last week after Israel killed Taleb Sami Abdullah, one of the most senior members of Hezbollah. The group responded by launching hundreds of drones and rockets at Israel.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday night that it had approved plans for an offensive in Lebanon. Earlier in the day, Israel launched strikes on Hezbollah drone launch squads, the Israeli military said.
In a speech on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah doubled down on military action saying Hezbollah has "a complete bank of targets", against Israel that include in the Mediterranean.
"The enemy should expect us on land, sea and air, and we will fight without restraints, rules or limits," he said.
Hezbollah published a nine minutes long drone video which showed military and economic targets around the Israeli harbor city of Haifa. That multiple Hezbollah drones could fly over Israel without being bothered by air defenses is a huge loss of face for the Israeli military.
The members of the resistance axis, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia groups in Syria, Iraqi militia and the Houthi in Yemen, are ready to fight. Even without attacking Iran, the main power behind the resistance, Israel and the U.S. are likely to lose such a war.
Without a chance to win they would of course, as usual, escalate the war most likely towards Iran, potentially Turkey, and elsewhere. Where it would go from there is unpredictable.
Why they would even launch such an avoidable war is beyond me.
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