If, as the polls indicate, Labour will form our new government next week, it is likely that one of its first challenges will be how to respond to the eruption of full-scale hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
With so much of the world’s attention focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, it is understandable that the escalating tensions on Israel’s northern border – where Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists have significantly increased their attacks – have not received the attention they deserve.
In any other context, Hezbollah’s almost daily strikes on northern Israel, which have seen an estimated 100,000 Israeli civilians flee their homes, would constitute a clear-cut casus belli. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have already been responding to this provocation, routinely attacking locations occupied by Hezbollah and their Iranian backers in both Lebanon and Syria, where the terrorist movement has established an elaborate network of bases.
This has not prevented Hezbollah from significantly increasing its attacks in recent weeks, a development many in the region blame on Iran. Indeed, having failed abysmally in its first attempt to launch a direct missile assault against Israel in April, Tehran is now looking to open a new front against the Israelis.
As one of Hamas’s principal backers, Israel’s systematic destruction of the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, culminating in the latest defeat of the Rafah brigade in the south of the enclave, is nothing short of a humiliation for the ayatollahs. The hundreds of millions of dollars they have invested in constructing Hamas’s terrorist network have achieved almost nothing.
This might explain why Iran is encouraging Hezbollah, the other major terror organisation it funds and supports in the region, to intensify its attacks against Israel, with regular arms shipments from Tehran to Beirut helping to sustain the Hezbollah offensive.
Apart from killing 10 Israeli civilians and 15 IDF personnel, the Hezbollah missile strikes recently caused a massive bush fire in northern Galilee, with more than 3,500 acres of land being destroyed.
Netanyahu’s determination to expand Israel’s military offensive to include Hezbollah and its Iranian backers dates back to the October 7 attacks, and the realisation that they could not have taken place without Tehran’s support. As senior Israeli security officials commented at the time, while Hamas was the initial focus of their response, they would address Iran and its proxies later on at a time of their own choosing.
And, judging by Netanyahu’s latest comments, that time is rapidly approaching, with the Israeli premier confirming that the IDF would in future “face north”. His comments followed a meeting of Israel’s defence chiefs to discuss the Hezbollah threat, with Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant saying afterwards that the generals had been told to “be fully prepared for all possibilities”.
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