Consumed with its war in Gaza, and the need to achieve both its goals — that is, to finish off Hamas as a military force, and to have all of the hostages still living to be returned — Israel has been holding back from a major operation in the north, despite the fact that Hezbollah keeps up a steady barrage of rockets, most recently firing 250 of them at northern Israel within 24 hours. The IDF will get to Hezbollah, in a major way, and in due time, but for now it is still in the process of taking apart what it believes are the last four intact battalions of Hamas operatives, hiding in Rafah, well aware that they have to act now, before a not-impossible ceasefire descends — although at the moment it looks like Hamas, demanding absurd changes to the latest deal proposed by Biden, will do as the Arabs so often do, which is to “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
The IDF has withheld responding with its full fury to the daily rocket barrages on northern Israel from Hezbollah. Instead, it has made do with tit-for-tat responses, hitting a half-dozen Hezbollah targets one day, and a dozen the next, but all of them carefully calibrated so as not to set off a full-scale war. It’s not a war Hassan Nasrallah wants. On June 11, Israel was able to strike a command-and-control center in the village of Jouaiyya and to kill Taleb Abdallah, the most senior Hezbollah commander killed during the last eight months of hostilities. In response, Hezbollah fired 250 rockets at Israel, with 100 of them fired in a single continuous barrage. There were no Israeli casualties, but the rockets started fires in the north that so far have consumed several thousand acres. Israel has responded with attacks that are more damaging — but only slightly so — than the previous Hezbollah attack.
But Israel will have to soon make a decision as to whether to launch a major campaign, with a ground invasion of south Lebanon, against Hezbollah. The reason is simple: right now much of Israel’s territory on and near the Lebanese border has been emptied out of its population. Sixty thousand people from the north have been displaced for the last eight months, having been forced by Hezbollah attacks to move south to live in hotels, or with relatives or friends. They cannot go back; the Hezbollah attacks make it too dangerous. About the same number of Israelis, who had been living in the south of the country along the border with Gaza, have left their homes to avoid rocket attacks from Hamas.
This means that Israel’s inhabitable land area is “shrinking,” with parts of the country, along both the Gazan and Lebanese borders, now largely empty. When Hamas has been dismantled, and the Gaza campaign at an end, Israelis will be able to return to their homes in the south. But in the north, Hezbollah still remains an active threat, and Israelis are not going to return to homes in the border area with Lebanon until Hezbollah’s constant attacks with missiles and drones come to an end or, at least, are reduced to their pre-October 7 frequency. Right now, the IDF has contented itself with answering each barrage with slightly stronger attacks of its own on command-and-control centers, on weapons depots, and on Hezbollah fighters’ positions.
There are many in the IDF high command who now think that war with Hezbollah cannot be avoided, that in delay there lies no plenty, because Hezbollah is acquiring more and better weapons, some from Iran, via Syria, and some, such as drones, made in its own weapons factories. As soon as it is determined that the Gaza war is coming to a successful conclusion, the IDF must launch a ground offensive into southern Lebanon, along with massive waves of airstrikes to which Hezbollah has no adequate defense. The IDF needs to reduce Hezbollah’s stockpile of 120,000 to 200,000 short-range guided ballistic missiles, short- and intermediate-range unguided ballistic missiles, and short- and long-range unguided rockets, to manageable proportions.
But Hezbollah’s Nasrallah may come to his senses before that IDF ground offensive begins. He has seen what the IDF has done in Gaza, with 80% of the Strip’s built surface heavily damaged or destroyed, and does not want to bring that kind of destruction to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is already hated by the Christians, the Sunnis, and even by some fellow Shi’a, fr bringing such destruction in the past to the country. Nasrallah may decide to ratchet down considerably the attacks from Hezbollah. He is known to be very worried about his own safety; he moves every few days and has joked that “even I don’t know where I am sleeping tonight.” And he has been made even more anxious by the recent pinpoint killing of that senior commander, Taleb Abdullah (Abu Taleb). Obviously, the Israelis know a great deal about the location of Hezbollah’s higher-ups. Nasrallah does not want to be a martyr. And he remembers the war with Israel in 2006, which he later said he would never have started had he known how hard Israel would hit back.
If the Hezbollah rocket barrages do not die down or cease, then Israel — once the Gaza war is essentially over — will be ready to launch airstrikes, send into the sky over Lebanon death-dealing drones, let loose endless artillery barrages, and also start a ground invasion with hundreds of tanks, all dedicated to destroying much of Hezbollah’s massive arsenal, and to pushing Hezbollah operatives much farther back from the border with Israel. The IDF really has no choice. Those 60,000 Israelis need to return to their homes. Israel needs to reclaim, and make habitable again, the western Galilee.
somehistory says
The simple answer is “No.”
Because hezbollah has already been firing missiles at Israel, the Jews in Northern Israel have been living with the threat coming their way for months, and hezbollah is made up of rabid mozlums, supported by the rabid mozlums of iran and hate the Jews just as much hamas.
there is already an ongoing war.
ATH says
Mohamed declared war on the world 1400 years ago and their written declaration of war is the Koran. They have never signed a peace treaty with the non-Muslim world. At all times throughout history, there have been violent acts by Muslims against non-Muslims.
90% of children born into Muslim families are brainwashed by the time they get into kindergarten. Only twice in history have small portions of the non-Muslim world hit back at them – 1. the Crusades and 2. Queen Isabella who did what the Muslims do – gave them choices of emigrating, or converting to Christianity or getting killed. Spain’s descendants of the Muslim converts to Christianity are still rabid anti-Semites and Spain is now one of three countries that have recognized the non-State of Palestine as a state.
Frank Anderson says
Neville Chamberlain AVOIDED war with Hitler. But he got war anyway. Hitler was not preparing for peace. War was his goal and so is it the goal of Hamas, Hezbollah and all other Muslims. The longer war is avoided, the worse it will be when it finally arrives. What happens when, not if, Iran gets bombs to share? “Pay me now or pay me later; But YOU will pay me sooner or later.”
Walter Sieruk says
The jihadists of Hezbollah with their recent launching of those deadly drone rockets into Northern Israel is murderously wicked..
Those Muslim terrorists of Hamas base their anti-Jewish beliefs on the Qu ‘ran which reads the are Jews are “apes and pigs” 2:65. 7:166. 5:60. Likewise. Hamas jihadists base their murderous violence against the Jewish people by the violent and deadly instruction found in the Qu ‘ran, 2:191. 4:89. 5:33. 9:5. 111,112, 123. 47:4.
Furthermore, the very foundation of and for Islam is the Qu ‘ran ,this leads to very important question: “Is the Quran the Word of God or is it a fabrication of a man. Thus, is the Quran the truth or a fiction and a hoax ?”
The answer is clearly given on pages 145 through 157 in THE ISLAMIC INVASION by Robert Morey in which he wrote a section on the Qu ‘ran with its self-contradictions. Just two of the many he cited are the following “The Quran differs on whether a day is a thousand years or fifty thousand years in God’s sight’ and “Who was first to believe? Abraham or Moses [Sura 6:14 versus 7:143]?
The above is inconsistent and illogical. Further, Morey wrote about “The fact that Judaism and Christianity broke up into different sects was used in the Qu ‘ran to prove that they are not of God [Suras 30:20-32. 42:13, 14]. Yet Islam has broken up into many warring sects and therefore cannot be true if the Qu ‘ran is right.” Moreover, Morey in his book shows many more contradictions and absurdities in the Qu ‘ran, there are and how Muhammad incorporated extra Biblical and Jewish folklore along with pre-Islamic Arabian myth and parts of Zoroastrian and Hindu stories into the Qu ‘ran.
Moreover, the Muslims claim that “the Qu ‘ran is the direct, literal word of God unmodified in any way by the Prophet who uttered them at the bidding of God.” In addition, in the book UNVEILING ISLAM by Ergun Mehmet Caner and Eethi Caner has shown that the Quran was modified in the following account on pages 45. “Muhammad felt the need to improve on the words of Allah, since he changed Allah’s wisdom for his own on several occasions. A hadith tells of the nonchalant emendations of Muhammad:’ On a number of occasions he [a scribe] had, with the Prophet’s consent changed the closing words of verses. For example, when the prophet had said ‘God is mighty and wise ‘ Adbollah b. Abi Sarh suggested writing down ‘Knowing and wise’ and the Prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Adbollah renounced Islam on the grounds that revelations, if from God could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites.”
Other writers reveal that later Muhammad and his people did go war with the Qorayshites and he personally killed Abdollah. Obviously Abdollah knew too much and Muhammad wanted Abdollah’s knowledge to die with him.”
In conclusion, the Qu ‘ran is not only a fiction also a hoax and therefore the entire foundation of Islam and its Hezbollah is based on lies and falsehood of that bogus “holy book.”
Walter Sieruk says
All that murderous malice and vicious hate that the jihadists of Hezbollah have for the Jewish people is very evil.
Those spite –filled Hezbollah jihadists didn’t obtain all that anti-Jewish , anti-Israel their own imagination.
For according to Qu ran ,which is the entire foundation of Islam, the Jews are “apes and swine in human form.” Such vicious and malice -filled vicious murderous spite and hate of jihadist Muslims ,as those of Hamas ,Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad for the Jewish people is based upon the foundation of Islam’s “holy book” the Qu ‘ran.
The roots of this awful Muslim murderous hostility towards the Jewish people is the result of a firm but blind and unquestioning Muslim faith in the Qu ‘ran. Which instructs in violence and killing for the cause of Islam. As found in, for example, 4: 89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123. 47:4.
In other words the Qu ‘ran inspires and causes such hideous violence. Furthermore, another role the Koran has in such deadly Islamic terror attacks in the Jewish nation of Israel is that the Koran contains many negative about the Jewish people.
The reason that the Qu ‘ran reads as it does have much to do with the history of the founder and prophet of Islam, who is Muhammad. This is for a specific time period of his life Muhammad lived among many Jewish people and he liked them at first.
Later then they would not accept his claim of being of prophet, Muhammad then took is dislike to them that then turned into bitterness and even hate for them. So in the hate and bitterness he spoke many derogatory things about the as even referring to them as “apes and swine.” Such word of bitterness and hate, along with other thing he said, where written down on things and then later after his death those words were together and then eventually, in time went in the composition of the Qu ‘ran.
Therefore, that why the Koran reads and in does about the Jewish people, as in calling them descendants of “apes and swine.” As seen in the Qu ‘ran in 2:65; 7:166.; 5:60.
Furthermore, as a Christian I can keyboard that there is a chance the Muhammad actually might had been a prophet but the important thing to understand is that Muhammad was NOT a prophet send by God. Instead, Muhammad was a deceptive, lying false prophet send by Satan to lead many people astray and even and straight into hell. Jesus, in fact, had predicted and warned of the coming of such men as Muhammad. For Jesus taught “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15. In addition, the Bible further warns that “many false prophets have gone out into the world.” First John 4:1. [N.K.J.V.]