Hezbollah chief
Hassan Nasrallah has issued a stern warning to Israel,
threatening a war with “no restraint and no rules and no ceilings” in case of a major Israeli offensive against Lebanon, and defended Hamas for making its
demands on a multiphased United States-led proposal that Washington says would lead to an “enduring ceasefire”. He said the US plan has an “obvious” gap that would allow Israel to resume the war after the first stage of the proposal, which would see the release of some Israeli captives held by Hamas.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday raised the prospect of a serious conflict with the Lebanese group after Hezbollah released surveillance drone footage showing important infrastructure and military sites in northern Israel. “We are very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah
and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit,” Katz wrote in a social media post.
Nasrallah underscored Hezbollah’s military capabilities, saying the group has acquired new weapons and has an abundance of drones that it manufactures locally. “The enemy knows well that we have prepared ourselves for the most difficult days,” he said. “The enemy knows well what awaits it, and that’s why it has been deterred so far. And it knows that there will be no place in the [country] that would be spared our rockets and drones. And it won’t be
indiscriminate bombing: every rocket – a target. There is a lot of fear from the enemy that the resistance would invade northern Israel, and this is a standing possibility that remains present in the context of any war imposed on Lebanon,” he said.
Al Jazeera.com
An estimated 155,000 civilians have already been displaced on both sides of the border. Israel evacuated 60,000 citizens living within 5km, while a further 20,000 have abandoned homes further away voluntarily, and another 75,000 have been forced to leave the villages of southern Lebanon while the tit-for-tat continues.
Sarit Zehavi, the founder of Alma, an education centre that focuses on the security of Israel’s northern border, said the current position was unsustainable: “There is already a second front. Galilee is under daily attack from UAVs, rockets and missiles. The average now is 90 every week. There is already a war up there on a low scale. The question is how it will be solved – whether through a full-scale war or some kind of ceasefire.”...an attempt at a military solution would need a combination of aerial bombing and a ground invasion that would require “the whole of the IDF’s available forces”, allowing for a limited presence in Gaza and a security presence in the West Bank. A rapid incursion would also ask a lot of IDF troops fatigued by eight months of long and bloody fighting in the south.
