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Iran is reportedly preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack on Israel, according to a senior US administration official, AP reported, as Israel began what it called a “limited” ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
The unnamed official, also warned Tuesday, of “severe consequences” should it take place with Washington having earlier offered its full support for Israel and warning Iran that the US will get involved if it attacks Israel directly.
The warning also comes as the US embassy in Israel has told its employees and their family members in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza to shelter in place “until further notice”.
The US has has gone from hollow declarations of “wanting a ceasefire” – while simultaneously supplying the Israelis with billions of dollars, sending more advanced weaponry, military hardware and troops to the region – to full support for Israel following of Israeli bombardment as the much-predicted war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out.
While Israel says the invasion is limited, analysts say this so-called limited invasion could be an attempt by the Israelis to test the strength of Hezbollah’s forces in preparation for a comprehensive ground invasion.
Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s deployment of a limited number of special forces soldiers inside southern Lebanon “makes perfect sense” for the moment, and ahead of a possible full-scale ground invasion.
“Obviously, Israel would be making a fatal mistake to send in, at the start, a massive ground invasion given what has happened in the past fighting Hezbollah,” he explained.
Rahman said Israel started with its bombardment of the south, then sent in special forces which was an “expeditionary force to probe and see the landscape, see the level of Hezbollah resistance that remains”.
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and 2006 and was forced to withdraw from its self-declared “security zone” in 2000, which it established in southern Lebanon, following repeated attacks by Hezbollah in a years’-long attritional war.
Weakening Hezbollah over the last few weeks has been an Israeli objective and one it has successfully carried out with its blanket bombing of southern Lebanon, Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, as well as its pager and walkie talkie attacks on Hezbollah operatives when the communication devices were loaded with explosives, killing dozens and injuring many more, including civilians.
Israel’s bombing campaign has killed well over 1,000 Lebanese and injured many more. More than a million Lebanese and Syrian refugees have been displaced, with over 100,000 Lebanese and Syrian refugees fleeing over the border into Syria.
Many of the displaced are sleeping on the streets in Beirut and relying on locals for food leading to the UN launching an urgent humanitarian appeal.
Not only has Hezbollah suffered significant military setbacks in these attacks but it has also been psychologically affected with the loss of many of its leaders and the sophisticated infiltration of its communication devices leaving fighters struggling to communicate and fearful of being blown up in any follow-up explosions.
Israel has also assassinated several other leaders from various Palestinian factions in Lebanon, including Hamas, Fatah and the Palestine Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
However, Israel may be getting overly confident in being able to defeat the resistance organisation which, unlike Israel, sees its fight as a long-term strategy and not the quick, hard war Israel wants.
Israel’s blitz campaign has emboldened its military and political leadership with premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity rising, giving him a welcome respite from his unpopularity over the Gaza war and his inability and unwillingness to secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages trapped in Gaza’s tunnels – as well as the corruption charges he is facing.
Netanyahu has now moved his war goals for Lebanon from beyond enabling the 60,000 displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north, to driving Hezbollah beyond the Litani River and destroying the organisation completely – much as he vowed that the Gaza war wouldn’t end until Hamas was likewise completely destroyed – an unlikely scenario in both cases according to many.