Israel is preparing for open warfare with Hezbollah – Technologist

Without anticipating the scale of Hezbollah’s military response, described by its leader Hassan Nasrallah as “terrible” on Thursday, September 19, Israel is preparing for the possibility of open war in Lebanon. This follows the wave of pager and walkie-talkie explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday – which left 37 people dead and some 3,000 wounded, mainly in the ranks of the Lebanese armed group, but also among the civilian population.

From Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli leaders and military officials are hammering home the message that a high-intensity conflict with Hezbollah involving a ground operation in Lebanon is a possibility and that anything could trigger it. A Western diplomatic source reckons that “the changeover could be quick.” The previous day, Gallant reiterated that “the center of gravity [of the conflict] is shifting to the north,” with the consequence of devoting “forces, resources and energy” hitherto employed in the Gaza Strip there.

On Thursday evening, at the end of a day marked by a series of air strikes targeting some 100 rocket-launching sites, the defense minister pledged that military operations would continue. In the preceding days, maneuvers simulating an invasion of Lebanese territory had been carried out toward the border, involving two brigades. In response, Hezbollah also intensified its fire towards Israel. On Thursday, two Israeli soldiers were killed.

Refocusing

While a long series of shootings and strikes across the Blue Line (the United Nations-marked border between Lebanon and Israel) has settled both sides into a war of attrition in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, preparations for an open conflict were carried out on the Israeli side over the summer. These accelerated in September, particularly in terms of troop transfers. On September 16, Le Monde met a paratrooper recently discharged from Gaza, after months of operations. Along with other members of the same brigade, he was taking a break in Jerusalem before heading north to his new station near the border.

The army announced on Wednesday that it had transferred the entire 98^th division – which includes the parachute brigade – to the north of the country. In total, observers estimate that three-quarters of the troops Israel needed to extract from Gaza and move to the north of Israel, before being able to carry out an operation in Lebanon, are said to be deployed in the border zone, or in the process of being deployed. At the same time, operations and air strikes are continuing in the Gaza Strip.

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