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Analysts and experts believe that Israel is determined to expand the war with the Lebanese Hezbollah in order to distract the world from the crimes that will occur in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip if it is invaded by land, while others say that it is not militarily prepared for a comprehensive confrontation with Lebanon, especially since Hezbollah is much stronger than Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
While Israel deepened its air strikes inside Lebanon to the city of Nabatieh, Hezbollah responded by bombing Safad, which is 30 kilometers from the border, in order to confirm its intention to respond in kind, according to military expert Brigadier General Muhammad Abbas.
During his participation in the program “Gaza... What Next?”, Abbas said that Hezbollah showed relative depth in its recent strike in order to send a message that it will respond to every development in Israeli operations in the same way.
Abbas expressed his belief that any expansion of the war by Israel "will be responded to by the party appropriately, as the party's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said."
From Abbas's point of view, Israel may not launch a ground war in Lebanon, but may resort to more air strikes, but even these "will be calculated for fear of the resistance responding to them, especially after the Iron Dome was breached all the way to Safad."
Israel is not ready
In this context, the expert on Israeli affairs, Dr. Muhannad Mustafa, said that Israel is not militarily prepared to enter into a comprehensive war with Hezbollah, indicating that this was possible at the beginning of the war on Gaza, but it is no longer easy at the present time.
Mustafa stressed that all Israeli threats to expand the war are nothing but an attempt to deter Hezbollah, because Israel's ability to wage war has greatly declined, in his opinion.
In practice, Mustafa says, removing Hezbollah to the north of the Litani River “will never happen through diplomatic means, while removing it militarily requires a comprehensive ground war, the tools of which Israel does not currently have.”
Mustafa believes that Israel "is well aware that declaring a state of comprehensive war with Lebanon will be much more difficult than with Gaza because Hezbollah's capabilities are much greater than those of Hamas."
He added that any ground war in Lebanon would cost Israel $30 billion, according to official Israeli data, in addition to that it would face 1,500 missiles daily, and 800,000 Israelis - representing 20% of the work force - would be forced to stop working.
Mustafa also pointed out that “only 20% of Israelis believe that the solution with Hezbollah will be military because the majority know that it is not Hamas.”
He pointed out that Israel had an intention to open a front in the north coinciding with the Gaza War, but it was thwarted, according to what was confirmed by War Council member Gadi Eisenkot, who said that preventing this war was one of his achievements within the War Council.
Therefore, Israel “is trying to maintain a certain degree of operations with Hezbollah in order to undermine its capabilities and return their residents to the settlements located on the border,” according to Mustafa.
Mustafa believes that Tel Aviv "is trying to make the party pay a certain price by targeting its leaders and military structure and removing it from the borders as much as possible, but it knows that Washington refuses to expand the conflict with Lebanon, and that it is not ready for this war."
Inevitable war
On the other hand, the senior researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Political Studies, Dr. Liqaa Makki, believes that “going to the brink of abyss is a permanent policy between Hezbollah and Israel, but it has always been within limits,” noting that the attack on Rafah “does not conflict with the possibility of expanding operations or perhaps opening a war.” Including with Lebanon.
Makki believes that the attack on Rafah will lead to heavy civilian losses, and therefore Israel will try to draw the world's attention to what it will commit against civilians there by opening a front in southern Lebanon.
Also, what is happening in Rafah - in Makki’s opinion - “will most likely be of a much smaller force than it was in the center and north of the Gaza Strip, and therefore will not require a large military force to provide the opportunity to mobilize the army on the Lebanese borders.”
From this standpoint, the Lebanon front “will be a distraction,” according to Makki, who pointed out that the party’s bombing of deeper targets inside Israel will not deter it, but rather will increase its fears and the fears of the United States, which agrees with Israel on the necessity of defeating Hamas and Hezbollah together, and which will not accept the presence of any force. Threatening Israel in the region.
Source: Al Jazeera