Middle East: Growing concerns about new war in Lebanon

Israel’s military has approved plans for an offensive in Lebanon, fueling fears of an escalation in the conflict with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia. High-ranking commanders approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” during a situation assessment, the military said. The readiness of the troops will be further increased.

When asked about this, the spokesman for the Pentagon in Washington, Pat Ryder, said: “I will not indulge in hypotheses or speculate about what might happen, but I will just say that nobody wants a major regional war.” The communications director of the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said against the background of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Islamist Hamas, which is allied with the Hezbollah militia: “We do not want an escalation. We do not want to see a second front.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister threatens escalation

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened on Platform X: “In a full-scale war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard.” Katz continued: “We are close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon.” Hezbollah had previously published aerial photographs from northern Israel, according to its own account.

The images are said to show the port of Haifa and other important strategic locations in the area and were taken by a drone. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted of having filmed the ports of Haifa and threatened to attack them, Israel’s foreign minister wrote.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war more than eight months ago, there have been daily military confrontations between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in the border area between the two countries. There have been deaths on both sides. Israel wants to use military and diplomatic pressure to get Hezbollah to withdraw behind the Litani River, 30 kilometers from the border – as stipulated in a 2006 UN resolution.

The Shiite militia is considered to be significantly more powerful than Hamas in Gaza. US envoy Amos Hochstein held talks in Lebanon to achieve a ceasefire. According to Lebanese information, Hochstein wanted to convey a sharp warning from the Israeli side to the Lebanese government.

Netanyahu attacks US government over arms delivery

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly attacked the US government in a video over a withheld arms shipment, causing irritation among the most important ally.

He recently told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel that it was “incomprehensible that the government has withheld weapons and ammunition from Israel in recent months,” Netanyahu said in a video address. “Secretary of State Blinken assured me that the government is working day and night to eliminate these shortages. I really hope that is the case.”

Blinken firmly rejected the criticism. When asked in Washington, he said the US was committed to ensuring that Israel had what it needed to defend itself against a wide range of threats. We are sticking to that commitment.

There is one case that US President Joe Biden made public, namely the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs, which is still being reviewed because the US government has concerns that the bombs could be used in a densely populated area like Rafah in southern Gaza. “But everything else is going on as usual,” said Blinken. When asked, a White House spokeswoman said there was only this one delivery that had been held back.

Report: Washington cancels meeting with Israelis

Following Netanyahu’s harsh criticism in the video, the White House canceled a meeting with high-ranking Israeli representatives that had originally been planned for Thursday in Washington, wrote well-connected Israeli journalist Barak Ravid on X last night.

The “Bild” newspaper and other media had previously reported that Blinken had signaled to Netanyahu that the restriction on arms deliveries would be lifted in the coming days. It would be easier to release the withheld delivery once Israel’s military ends its deployment in Rafah, the US news portal “Axios” quoted US officials as saying. Israel’s army has said it will soon achieve its war goals in Rafah.

Half of the Hamas fighting units in Rafah have been destroyed, it was said. 60 to 70 percent of the city’s territory is under “operational control” of Israeli troops. The offensive, which began in early May, was highly controversial because more than a million Palestinians were in Rafah at the time. Almost all of them have now fled to an area to the west, where they can only be supplied with difficulty.

New mass protests in Israel against Netanyahu government

Meanwhile, there were renewed mass protests against the Netanyahu government in Israel. Near the parliament building in Jerusalem, demonstrators called for new elections, as several Israeli media reported. Many Israelis accuse Netanyahu of bowing to the demands of his extremist coalition partners and therefore of thwarting a deal to release the hostages still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Some of Netanyahu’s ministers are against an agreement with the Islamist organization because it would also include a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre in Israel on October 7, which left more than 1,200 people dead, carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other groups. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 37,300 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified.