(RepublicanNews.org) – Amidst months of escalating tensions, Israeli authorities have approved a plan of action against the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah.
The Islamist Hezbollah group has targeted Israel with drone and rocket attacks following Hamas’s brutal raids and massacres against Israel on October 7th. Hezbollah is estimated to have fired around 5000 rockets, drones, and other munitions into northern Israel since it ramped up its violence against the Jewish state in October. It is reported that Hezbollah’s assault and Israel’s retaliatory strikes have forced 60,000 Israelis and 90,000 Lebanese to flee their homes. Around 100 Lebanese civilians are believed to have been killed, along with 9 Israeli civilians.
Hezbollah, which is understood to have lost 300 of its militia fighters in the conflict, refuses to cease striking at Israel while Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza. It has promised unlimited violence against Israel, should Israel launch a full attack against its forces. Israel has previously avoided scaling up its actions against Hezbollah, whose fighting wing is designated a terrorist organization by many countries, including the U.S. However, following Hezbollah’s successful surveillance drone flight over the Israeli city of Haifa, the Israeli military appears to have approved a plan for a major assault.
Following Hezbollah’s release of the drone footage on Tuesday, June 18th, top generals for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) released a statement warning the group that “operational plans” for an offensive on Lebanese soil have been drawn up and approved. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would try to find a diplomatic method of ending the violence, rather than fighting a full-scale war on the country’s northern border, but added that Israel “can fight on several fronts.”
Hezbollah represents a formidable enemy with greater firepower and technology than the Gazan Hamas terror group. Hezbollah’s militia wing is larger and more powerful than Lebanon’s national army, and its leader claims to have new weaponry and intelligence that would help it to greatly damage Israel. Israel, on the other hand, has warned that it has only shown Hezbollah some of what it is capable of, and has threatened to turn Lebanon into a scene of destruction as it has done in Gaza.
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