Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has approved plans for an offensive against Hezbollah, officials have said.
The claims from Israel's foreign minister and military late on Tuesday followed Hezbollah's release of threatening drone footage. The rising tension conflicts with US efforts to avoid escalation amid months of low-level hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The nine-minute drone footage of the Israeli port city of Haifa, filmed during the day, showed civilian and military areas, including shopping malls and residential neighborhoods, as well as a weapons manufacturing complex and missile defense batteries.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded vehemently in a post on
Nasrallah today boasts of having filmed the ports of Haifa, operated by international companies from China and India, and threatens to attack them.
We are very close to the moment of the decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be…— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) June 18, 2024
“We are very close to the moment of the decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In a total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit,” he wrote.
The Israeli military later said in a statement that Ori Gordin, head of its Northern Command, which includes the front line with Hezbollah, had approved plans to mount a ground attack across Israel's northern border.
“As part of the assessment of the situation, operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated and decisions were made on continuing to increase the readiness of troops in the field,” he said.
Israel and Hezbollah have been involved in border fighting since shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, following the October 7 attacks on Israel. The confrontation is increasingly widening and both sides say they are willing to go to war.
Nasrallah is scheduled to give a speech on Wednesday afternoon. He has said in the past that Hezbollah will only stop its attacks if Israel stops its invasion of Gaza, which has killed at least 37,000 Palestinians.
The Israeli military has periodically launched airstrikes against Lebanon since the start of the war. On Tuesday, he claimed to have attacked military infrastructure in multiple areas in the south of the country.
On Monday he said he killed a “core operative” of Hezbollah's rocket division in a drone strike. A week earlier, he assassinated Taleb Abdullah, reportedly commander of a Hezbollah division covering the western sector of the front line between the border with Israel and the Litani River.
Hezbollah recently said it has carried out more than 2,100 military operations against Israel since October 8 in what it says is an effort to support the Palestinians.
More than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, including journalists and paramedics, in the last eight months, and 25 of them in Israel. At least 90,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon and more than 60,000 have been forced to leave their homes in northern Israel.
The United States is pressing diplomatically to avoid an escalation, White House envoy Amos Hochstein said Tuesday during a trip to Lebanon.
“We have seen an escalation in recent weeks. And what President Biden wants to do is avoid further escalation into a larger war,” Hochstein told reporters in Beirut after meetings in Israel a day earlier.
