Israel has edged closer to an all-out war with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement amid a worsening round of hostilities playing out as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is already engaged in its most intensive conflict to date in the Gaza Strip, an IDF official has said.
IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters Monday that Hezbollah has fired "more than 1,000 different types of ammunition, rockets, missiles, drones, mortars and others toward Israel" since October 8, the day after the Palestinian Hamas movement led an unprecedented surprise attack against Israel from Gaza.
Conricus warned that "Hezbollah, who as everybody knows is a proxy of Iran, is dangerously dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war that could have potential devastating consequences for the state of Lebanon and for the people of Lebanon.
"And it is a war that I think neither Lebanon nor Israel deserves to be fighting."
Conricus expressed Israel's desire for a diplomatic solution to disarm the threat posed by Hezbollah to Israeli troops and civilians along the northern border but said the IDF "will continue making the necessary preparations to remove by the means that we have available as a military the threat from our border."
Responding to Newsweek's question about how close Israel was to another full-scale war in Lebanon, Conricus said that, looking at the scope of the ongoing attacks, "then by any means we could have been at war with Hezbollah long, long ago, based solely on their actions, their violation of Israeli sovereignty and the casualties that they have caused against Israel."
"We are closer today to war than we were yesterday," Conricus said. "And the directive to the IDF is of course to enhance readiness to prepare and to be capable of defending Israeli civilians."
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant too stated separately on Monday that if "restoring security in the area" could "not be implemented diplomatically, then we will not hesitate to act."
Newsweek has reached out to Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces for comment.
The group has regularly announced strikes against Israeli positions "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their valiant and honorable resistance."
The latest round of attacks on Monday notably included claims of the targeting of two Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries in the northern Israeli kibbutz of Kabri.
The IDF, for its part, announced a number of launches against Israel from southern Lebanon. Israeli forces responded by conducting strikes with artillery and fighter jets against Hezbollah sites, according to an IDF report.
The tempo of attacks along the tense boundary between Israel and Lebanon has reached levels not seen since the IDF and Hezbollah fought their second and last major war in 2006.
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