With chances fading for a Gaza ceasefire agreement, there is growing concern that the ongoing deadlock will prompt Israel to launch a war in Lebanon in an effort to remove the Hizbullah threat from its northern border.
More than 60,000 Israelis fled their homes across the northern border in the early days of the war, almost a year ago, and there is mounting pressure on the government to put an end to this unprecedented internal displacement.
“We are shifting the focus northward as we approach the completion of the missions in the south [the Gaza Strip],” defence minister Yoav Gallant told troops on the Lebanese border earlier this week. “You need to be prepared and ready to carry out this mission. We are operating here to achieve our objectives and are ready to shift the focus northward swiftly.”
Similar threats are issued by Israeli politicians and generals every few days, stressing that one way or another – via diplomacy or military force – the Hizbullah threat will be dealt with.
Exhausted after 11 months of war in Gaza, it’s clear that Israel’s preferred option is diplomacy. But the Iranian-backed Hizbullah has vowed to maintain its daily cross-border attacks as long as the fighting continues in Gaza, a strategy it calls “the unity of fronts” that purportedly reduces the pressure on Gaza.
Israel has kept its military plans under wraps but any operation in the north, at a minimum, would aim at pushing Hizbullah fighters north of the Litani river. UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the second Lebanon war in 2006, barred Hizbullah from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani, which is located some 30km north of the Israel-Lebanon border. The powerful militia, however, with an estimated arsenal of 130,000 rockets, violated that resolution, maintaining a military presence in areas near the border.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese Al Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Hizbullah, reported that Israel plans to invade Lebanon’s Bekaa valley via Syria and push eastwards to cut the valley, and Hizbullah supply lines, off from southern Lebanon.
On Sunday night, the Israeli air force carried out a series of strikes across Syria, unprecedented in geographical scope and duration, that many interpreted as part of Israel’s preparations ahead of a major campaign in Lebanon. The aerial attack hit a number of targets, the primary one being the CERS scientific research facility, which Iran has reportedly been using to develop precision missiles for Hizbullah and its other proxy forces.
A Syrian opposition group based in Turkey reported on Thursday that Israeli commandos were flown in by helicopter to the site in the area of Masyaf, in tandem with the air strikes, and engaged with Syrian troops before entering the top-secret facility. It reports they took computers and intelligence and seized a number of Iranians, before destroying the site, which lies about 200km north of Israel. Israeli security officials refused to comment on the report.
Diplomatic efforts, led by the US and France, to avert a war in Lebanon, revolve around the agreement of all sides to implement resolution 1701 in full. However, many in Israel believe that such a formula is no longer relevant because it fails to address Hizbullah’s long-range ballistic missile threat and its new arsenal of drones.
So even under the most optimistic scenario, in which a ceasefire is clinched in Gaza and Hizbullah ends its attacks in the north and agrees to the implementation of resolution 1701, this will still not be enough to persuade many residents in northern Israel that they can return home with a sense of security.
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