While pressure mounts from the Biden administration over the need for a Gaza ceasefire agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to expand the war to Lebanon under the pressure of his own population.

Netanyahu declared that he was preparing an “extremely powerful” attack against Hezbollah on Wednesday while conducting a surprise visit to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Shmona, which lies along the Lebanese border. This was later followed by a series of Hezbollah military operations, culminating in a deadly attack carried out against an Israeli military base in the Hurfeish area that inflicted around 20 Israeli casualties.

According to an article written for the Israeli daily Haaretz, military officials in private security discussions advocated a heavy attack on Lebanese territory. This appeared to be in line with a public announcement on Tuesday from Israeli military chief Herl Halevi that Israel is approaching “the point where a decision will have to be made.”

The comment was prompted by domestic outrage that came in response to some 96 fires that erupted across the northern settlements following Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon.

ISRAEL IS BURNING

The situation is out of control, and the fires in Kiryat Shmona are expanding and entering the settlers’ homes.

Settlements are turning to Hell on earth for Zionists.#AlleyesonRafah #FreePalestine #Gaza_Genocide‌ #Gaza_Holocaust… pic.twitter.com/lfszizlP5S

— أحمد|Ahmed (@l_d70) June 4, 2024

Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese media outlet, also released a report on Tuesday in which it cited security sources about warnings sent to Beirut over an imminent Israeli attack on the country. The most explicit warning came from the British, who “set a date for the Israeli strike in mid-June, with advice on the necessity of carrying out the necessary supply measures for the war, the extent of its expansion nor its duration of time will not be known.”

On October 9, one day after the beginning of the Hamas-led offensive operation against Israel, the Lebanese political party began launching attacks on Israeli military facilities in support of Gaza.

Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, declared in his first speech during the Gaza war that “Hamas will win,” establishing this as his only clearly defined red line. Since then, there have been thousands of missile, drone and rocket strikes against Israeli targets, while the Israeli military has killed around 400 people in Lebanon, roughly 300 of which were members of Hezbollah and the rest civilians.

Hezbollah has slowly increased the scale of its attacks over the past months. This came in response to escalatory Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory, including the assassination of leading Hamas figures in Beirut, airstrikes on civilian areas in both southern and northern Lebanon and targeted killings of journalists and medical workers.

In December, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s emergency war government, threatened that “if the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] will do it.” Israeli PM Netanyahu had also threatened to “devastate” the Lebanese capital in the event of war.

Following U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement that a new Israeli ceasefire had been drafted, urging both Hamas and Israel to accept it, pressure has been mounting to end the war amid widespread international condemnation, including a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), calling on Israel to halt its invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

It is expected that if war breaks out in Lebanon, it will greatly complicate efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and could escalate into a larger regional conflagration.

Feature photo | A Hezbollah flag is seen hung on the rubble of homes destroyed by  recent Israeli airstrikes in the Lebanese village of Naqura. Marwan Naamani | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe.’ Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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