Anders Hagstrom
Fox NewsMon, 17 Jun 2024 18:50 UTC
© Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu Agency via GettyIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are pictured in the West Bank in August 2023.
Israeli officials warned that the country is on the "brink" of a full-scale war with Hezbollah if the terrorist group continues to increase its aggression in northern Israel.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
made the warning on Sunday, just a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to meet with Amos Hochstein, a top aide to President Biden. Biden's administration is pushing Israel to avoid a war in Lebanon, but IDF officials continue to highlight the outsized threat posed by Hezbollah compared to Hamas.
"Hezbollah's increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation," an IDF spokesman warned Sunday.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed the statement in his own talks with Hochstein on Monday."We are committed to the diplomatic process, however Hezbollah's aggression is
bringing us closer to a critical point in the decision-making regarding our military activities in Lebanon," he told the Biden representative.Hochstein later met with both Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Both Israeli figures thanked Hochstein for meeting with them but made no promises regarding a war in Lebanon.
Israel did not offer details about their conversations.
As the war in Gaza continues,
Israeli sources have highlighted the threat that Hezbollah poses compared to Hamas. The Gaza Strip terror group has relatively few resources and has largely been dismantled by the IDF since the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
Hezbollah, however, is far more well-equipped and has more manpower. Their rockets and drone attacks have already forced over 100,000 Israelis to evacuate their homes in northern Israel.
"Hezbollah is the crown jewel in the Iranian empire of terror and evil and is by far the most powerful Iranian proxy, equipped with nation state capabilities and even more firepower than several European countries have today," former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Fox News.
"In a military comparison, Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas," he added.
Netanyahu has threatened war with Hezbollah for months, but there has yet to be a distinct escalation. A steady stream of Israeli air strikes have eliminated a number of top Hezbollah commanders, and Hezbollah has kept up its barrage of missiles and rockets.
Comment: The Cradle reports:
Israel welcome to invade Lebanon, resistance is ready: Hezbollah MP
During a conversation co-hosted by The Cradle on 16 June, Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese MP Ibrahim Moussawi shared his perspectives on the ongoing war between Israel and the Axis of Resistance in Lebanon and Gaza.
In relation to the possibility of a larger war erupting on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Moussawi stated that neither Hezbollah nor Israel wants a wider war but that the Islamic resistance is ready if Israel decides to invade.
"If they want to come to Lebanon, they are welcome. We are waiting for them. Ahlan wa Sahlan, as they say in Arabic," he stated.
© Sky NewsLebanese MP Ibrahim Moussawi
Moussawi noted that Israel is having difficulty managing the war in Gaza and asked where Israel would get the troops to launch a much more difficult invasion of Lebanon. "They can't manage themselves in Gaza, and they want to come here? In Gaza, they are not fighting. They are just bombarding and sending drones. But if they do come, we are anxiously waiting for them. We have made preparations that they can never imagine," he added.
Regarding Hezbollah's accomplishments in the war against Israel so far, the Lebanese MP pointed out that the party's daily attacks against Israeli military positions and settlements have displaced some 200,000 Israelis and paralyzed economic activity in areas that Israel long viewed as secure.
Moussawi stated, "In Lebanon, at the beginning of the war, many started to mock and say our interference was not helpful. It is not doing anything. But Israelis are the experts. Their leaders and their intelligence apparatus have admitted that the front in northern Palestine has caused great suffering for Israelis."
He added that Hezbollah is fighting a "war of attrition" against Israel along a 120-kilometer front line that has now lasted eight months and involved thousands of operations.
"We are talking about huge losses they do not admit, but later they will. It is unprecedented. It costs them a lot on the moral and military levels."
When asked about recent Israeli threats to bomb civilians in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, as the Israeli army did during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Moussawi explained, "That was in the past, not the present. Now, if they destroy, we destroy. If they destroy our infrastructure, we will destroy their infrastructure. The Israelis know very well that Hezbollah is capable of targeting in a very precise way any place in occupied Palestine with our ballistic missiles and drones, from here in the north to the farthest point in the south. So if they think they can come to Lebanon, we are ready for it. They are welcome."
Regarding Hezbollah's goals, Moussawi stated that the party must ensure the resistance in Gaza is not crushed and that this goal has been successful thus far. He said that over 70 percent of Hamas' leadership and fighting brigades are intact and that they have reorganized to overcome the losses Israel has inflicted on them so far.
"I will tell you that Hamas has won the war. They can fight for months to come, if not for years. They are ready to fight like on the 8th of October." Moussawi stated.
He added, "The kind of morale they have, the kind of belief they have, cannot be defeated. All the Palestinians fighting for Hamas and Islamic Jihad are heroes, superheroes. And even more so, the Palestinian women are heroes. They continue to shed their blood and have never raised the white flag. They never surrender or stab the resistance in the back."
Indeed, Palestinians have shown incredible fortitude in the face of decades of torment by the terrorist, occupying state of Israel.
Meanwhile, in just the last 8 months or so, 500,000+ Israelis have fled the country; the psychological state of those that remain is questionable, with the vast majority supporting the genocide, some calling for even greater terrorism, and a significant minority suffering from mental health problems (despite suffering little direct contact with the genocide itself). Furthermore, Israel's economy is flailing, and the number of officials that have resigned is not insignificant.
There have been occasions where isreali jews have been walking onto Palestinian property, uninvited, to look over the place in case they want it, ahead of the illegal eviction of the existing owners.