Israel ready for war with Hezbollah: “The situation here must change”

A zone described by local authorities as a “dead zone” stretches several kilometers from the Lebanese border to the north of Israel. Tens of thousands of residents have fled further south. Agriculture in the region has come to a standstill and there is no more tourism.

Civilian authorities and military units in northern Israel are currently preparing for an all-out war with the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, while military preparations along the border reflect increasingly outspoken statements by current and former Israeli officials.

“The situation here must change,” retired Lieutenant Colonel Oren, an Israeli officer stationed in northern Israel, told reporters in the settlement of Mitzpe Hila, about eight kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. “We have clear plans.”

Shortly after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, the Iran-backed Hezbollah quickly began attacking northern Israel from southern Lebanon with drones, rockets and missiles, calling it a show of solidarity with Hamas. Israel then sent reinforcements to the northern border.

Hezbollah has announced that it will continue its attacks on northern Israel until the Israeli military has completely withdrawn from Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been waging a highly destructive war in Gaza for nearly nine months and are determined to destroy Hamas and free the more than 100 hostages remaining in Gaza. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza has said that more than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since October.

Israel has indicated it is preparing to shift some resources from Gaza to the northern front, escalating the retaliatory fire that has forced some 100,000 people to flee in southern Lebanon into a full-scale ground offensive. Israel has officially signaled it does not want a full-scale war with Hezbollah, but it has “approved and confirmed” operational plans for an offensive in the neighboring country.

“We are prepared to do whatever is necessary to eliminate this threat,” Oren said.

Others go even further. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week that the country’s military could send Lebanon “back to the Stone Age” in an open conflict. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned at the weekend that a “sharp, quick” war with Hezbollah was imminent, Israeli media reported.

Zohar Palti, former Mossad intelligence chief, told reporters in Tel Aviv that they expected operations in Lebanon to be full-scale, adding: “We will do it. We will have to do it.” Tel Aviv may take some hits, but the Lebanese capital Beirut could be razed to the ground, he said.

Hezbollah – both a political party and a militant organization – wields enormous power in Lebanon, where the official state apparatus is in tatters. Hezbollah emerged from Lebanon’s civil war in the mid-1970s to fight Israel and has become one of the world’s best-equipped non-state actors. Israel last fought Hezbollah directly in 2006.

Hezbollah is “a terrorist organization that acts like an army,” Lieutenant Colonel Ishay Efroni, head of the security department of the Mate Asher regional council in northern Israel, told the media. Mate Asher covers large parts of northwestern Israel, from the border with Lebanon to the northeast of the regional center of Haifa.

“They have an almost unlimited budget and access to every new type of munitions, bombs and missiles imaginable,” he added. “They have the equipment, they have the ability to attack and they are motivated.”

Israeli commanders in the north express their belief that Israel will emerge as the clear winner in the battle against Hezbollah, despite Hezbollah’s extensive weapons stockpile and concerns about Israel’s ability to defend itself against attacks from the north.

“Hezbollah is no match for the Israeli army,” Lt. Col. Yarden, also speaking from Mitzpe Hila, told international media. “What is happening in Gaza today is child’s play compared to what could happen in northern Lebanon.”

Outside Israel, Israel’s allies and other countries in the region are keen to prevent further escalation, but reports suggest the US has warned Hezbollah that it would be unlikely to stop an Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned late last month that the Middle East and the international community “cannot afford for Lebanon to become a second Gaza”.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations has threatened a “devastating war” if an Israeli operation takes place in Lebanon.

“We see no light at the end of the tunnel”

For some residents of northern Israel, the possibility of widespread destruction from a ground offensive is a price they are increasingly willing to pay in order to be able to return to their homes without Hezbollah lurking just miles away.

Without the expulsion of the militant group from southern Lebanon, the residents of northern Israel will never be able to return, say authorities near the border.

“Hezbollah is the most dangerous terrorist organization in the Middle East, not only in northern Israel but in the entire Middle East,” said Moshe Davidovich, chairman of the Mate Asher Regional Council.

“Now we are fighting to give our residents the security to return to their homes” without fear of being fired upon or kidnapped, Davidovich said. Until Hezbollah’s infrastructure and arsenal are destroyed, he will not allow his residents to return, he added.

According to Israeli authorities, between 60,000 and 70,000 residents in northern Israel have been displaced. Many residents, including 7,000 from Mate Asher, were initially housed in hotels, but some have since moved to more permanent housing across the country, including in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Those within just over three kilometers of the border were completely evacuated; houses further south were largely left in their original form.

As things stand, “we see no light at the end of the tunnel,” Efroni said.

“Completely ready and determined”

For many months, Israel has been conducting a campaign of retaliatory airstrikes targeting senior Hezbollah figures and senior members of the organization, according to the Israeli military. The Israeli attacks have been concentrated mainly in the border areas, leading to mass evacuations of residents of southern Lebanon, but have also reached towns such as the Lebanese city of Baalbek in deep Lebanon and east of Beirut.

“We are waging a defensive battle on our border, but we have also carried out numerous offensive strikes every day,” Yarden said.

According to Yarden, almost 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since October, the vast majority of them members of Hezbollah. During this time, almost 10,000 rockets and missiles were fired at northern Israel.

Looking ahead to the next phase, Oren said the Israeli forces are “fully ready and determined.”

“People need to come home,” Yarden added.