How a full-scale war against Israel could involve the US and other countries

Terrorist rockets rain down on Israeli cities and villages.

Tens of thousands have been displaced, dozens killed and large parts of the country are in flames.

That sounds like the Gaza Strip, the belt of Israeli communities that borders Gaza to the south – but it describes the reality in Israel’s north.

Beginning with the Hamas invasion on October 7, the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon launched a completely unprovoked attack on Galilee.

Today, eight months later, entire cities lie deserted and countless hectares of farmland lie fallow or have burned down.

Missiles and attack drones target any Israeli – civilian or soldier – who remains unprotected.

With each passing day, Hezbollah’s fire expands towards the south; today its fire is aimed at the major cities of Safad and Tiberias, and tomorrow it will most likely target Haifa.

If Hezbollah is not given control over it, it could soon render half of the country uninhabitable.

This would be an intolerable situation for any country, and even more so for Israel, a country that is still suffering from the trauma of October 7, has killed soldiers almost every day since then, and feels internationally isolated.

Hezbollah, one of the most powerful military powers in the Middle East, is waging a war of attrition aimed at further depleting Israel’s resources.

Israeli counterstrikes have killed hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists and destroyed many of their positions, but such actions will have little impact on an organization that has lost thousands of people fighting in the Syrian civil war.

With fighting still raging in Gaza, Israelis are hesitant to expand the northern front. But soon the government will have no choice but to act.

But a full-scale war in the north would be fundamentally different from the one in Gaza.

At its peak, Hamas had about 15,000 rockets with limited accuracy and destructive power and 30,000 armed terrorists.

Despite all the horrors it inflicted on October 7, Hamas represents only a tactical threat to Israel.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, poses a strategic threat to Israel.

Its arsenal of at least 150,000 rockets and missiles includes those capable of hitting any target – airfields, military bases, oil refineries and even the Dimona nuclear reactor – all the way to Israel’s southernmost port of Eilat.

Hezbollah’s countless exploding drones have hit civilians trying to get into their homes and soldiers resting in an Arab community center.

Unlike Hamas, which is confined to the Gaza Strip and cut off from supplies, Hezbollah has the whole of Lebanon as its area of ​​operation and logistical lines that extend across the whole of Syria.

A war with Hezbollah would likely result in rocket fire into Israel from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen, as well as rocket attacks like the one that came from Iran on Israel on April 14.

The war with Hamas is local.

The war with Hezbollah will trigger at least a regional, if not larger, war.

The war will be different not only from the one in Gaza, but also from Israel’s previous conflict with Hezbollah in 2006.

At that time, Israel distinguished between Hezbollah and Lebanon and did not declare war on its northern neighbor.

Today, however, Israel views Hezbollah and Lebanon as one.

A war against the first would be a war against both.

Lebanon, a country already on the brink of collapse, could be devastated.

For these reasons, the Biden administration opposes a large-scale Israeli operation against Hezbollah.

With Israel being hit by an estimated 2,000 to 6,000 missiles a day and the Iron Dome batteries potentially overwhelmed, the United States would be called upon to come to Israel’s aid with its own sea-based missile defense systems.

An attack on one of these naval vessels could drag America into war with Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors, and possibly even with Iran’s ally Russia.

While senior Israeli military officials reportedly supported a blitz campaign to neutralize Hezbollah last fall, political leaders, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took America’s opposition into account and held back.

But public pressure to act decisively is growing rapidly and cannot be ignored for long.

A diplomatic solution would of course be preferable to a full-blown war.

American mediators shuttled between Jerusalem and Beirut to revive UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006.

The resolution, drafted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, called on Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, about 21 kilometers from the Israeli border, and for UN peacekeepers to establish a buffer zone in between.

Hezbollah violated the agreement almost immediately, while the UN simply stood by.

Today, Israelis cannot help but wonder why Hezbollah, despite its now much larger forces, withdrew beyond the Litani summit.

How could UN peacekeepers prove more effective than in the past?

And what influence could the United States exert if it is determined to avoid entanglements in the Middle East?

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has announced that it will continue its attacks on Israel as long as fighting in the Gaza Strip continues.

But since Hamas rejects American and Israeli proposals for a ceasefire, an end to Hezbollah’s aggression seems impossible.

Israel cannot be expected to react passively and fire at incoming missiles until it runs out of Iron Dome interceptor missiles.

Tragically, a combination of Hezbollah’s barbarism, the UN’s impotence and America’s fears have brought Israel to a point where it has no other choice.

The suffering in northern Galilee is simply unbearable and must end, even if the price is exorbitant.

The Gaza-focused media almost completely ignores the conflagration spreading further north. Yet a major war could break out there at any time, with unforeseen consequences for the Middle East, the United States and the world.

In this case, Israel will take measures to defend itself, and the Israelis will count on the help of their American allies to restore their security.

Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Knesset member, and deputy minister for diplomacy, is president of the Israel Advocacy Group and editor of the Substack newsletter Clarity.