Is Israel ready to go to war against Hezbollah?

Whenever the great Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit had to leave the stage during a performance, he always took a step back, showing the audience that he was reluctant to leave, before advancing and walking away into the backstage to his left or right. U.S. policy toward Israel and the war in Gaza followed a similar series of steps forward and backward, with the Biden administration not leaving the scene but eternally frustrated by policy cuts and advances in the Middle East. -East.

Netanyahu says Israel’s survival and his own political future depend on victory in Gaza

Another week has passed and little has been resolved to end a war that even Israel admits could last at least another six months. And now, perhaps more than ever since Hamas surprised Israel on October 7, fears are growing in Washington that Israel could soon start a full-scale war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

The arrival in the region of Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s Middle East envoy, a 51-year-old Israeli-American with good contacts in Lebanon, underscored Washington’s concern about the potential dangers to Israel resulting of the opening of a second front in the war.

For months, Hezbollah, a military force infinitely superior to Hamas in terms of missile and rocket arsenals and manpower, has engaged in regular strikes across the border, some of them ferocious. Israel responded forcefully. Today, Tel Aviv would have approved a military plan and would therefore be ready to go to war against Hezbollah. The last war between Israel and Hezbollah dates back to 2006. It lasted 34 days and ended in a stalemate.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, and to a lesser extent Islamic militias in Iraq and Syria, have said their campaign of attacks will continue as long as Israeli forces remain in Gaza. Hockstein received this message loud and clear. It is often premature to suggest that a war has reached a turning point, but Biden’s fear of escalating war in the Middle East now seems more likely rather than less likely.

The threat of a new conflict has galvanized Washington and Tel Aviv. This could explain why Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s embattled prime minister, suddenly decided to launch a protest against what he sees as Washington’s deliberate withholding of vital munitions its forces need to complete the ongoing Rafah operation. . No army wants to fight on two fronts.

Netanyahu’s accusation drew mild rebukes in Washington. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, who has seen Netanyahu more often than any other foreign politician in recent months, said the only arms shipment currently temporarily suspended was a 2,000-pound stockpile of bombs. The reason was, as had been stated on previous occasions, that the United States feared that the use of these heavy aerial bombs would cause unacceptable collateral damage in the dense urban environment of Rafah.

According to the Pentagon, the cargo includes 1,800 2,000-pound bombs but also 1,700 500-pound bombs. Netanyahu wants both and feels Washington is letting him down and, more importantly, refusing to send promised munitions at a time when Israel says it desperately needs them – for use in Lebanon, perhaps as well as in Gaza.

The row grew over the week as Washington said Netanyahu was trying to give the impression that the Pentagon had stopped sending weapons to Israel. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said:

Since Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, we have injected billions of dollars in security assistance into Israel to help it defend itself, and we will continue to provide the security assistance it needs. requires.

The point about these particular bombs is that they are not intelligent, precision weapons. These are unguided munitions, and the United States does not want to appear as if it is helping Israel drop bombs on Rafah that end up killing civilians and destroying private property. Washington learned this lesson when previous shipments of these heavy bombs did just that in Gaza City early in the war.

“There is no final decision yet on how to proceed with this expedition,” Ryder said. As Netanyahu and Washington continue their bickering, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah continues, but without the intensity that previously caused such global horror.

The IDF 162^sd Division that has been in Rafah for about six weeks and claims to have killed about 550 Hamas soldiers in the city – about half of the fighting forces there, and the equivalent of two battalions of Hamas’ Rafah brigade, made up of four battalions. In the process, the IDF lost 22 soldiers, including eight in a single Hamas ambush on an IDF armored vehicle.

It is in Israel’s interest to complete the Rafah operation as quickly as possible, and it will likely have to do so without these bombs being held in the United States. But even then, the war will not end. Hamas members left Rafah to settle elsewhere in Gaza. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said Wednesday that it was impossible to eradicate the entire Hamas organization and its ideology. Making Hamas disappear was “simply throwing sand in the public eye.”

Netanyahu reprimanded the admiral. He believes that Israel’s survival and its own political future depend on its victory in Gaza. Given the challenges he faces at home in Gaza and on Lebanon’s northern border, the Israeli leader cannot afford to face disaffection from the army.