WASHINTON July 16. 2024 (Saba) -Qorn down by Gaza, Israel's military looks warily toward war in Lebanon, The Washington Post said on Monday.
Israeli leaders say that they do not want a war in Lebanon but that their country is ready for any scenario, the paper added.
Beneath the posturing, though, there are growing fears within Israel that its soldiers are overstretched and its resources depleted after the country’s longest war in decades.
Nine months of punishing attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip have not vanquished the group, and a politically embattled Netanyahu has yet to outline an exit strategy.
In Lebanon, Israel would face a larger, better-armed and more-professional foe, experts warn, and the threat of an even deeper military quagmire.
Israeli military leaders have been drawing up plans for a Lebanon offensive for months. On Wednesday, a day after two Israeli civilians were killed in a Hezbollah missile barrage, former war cabinet member Benny Gantz said that he and others had demanded that Netanyahu authorize an Israeli incursion into Lebanon in March, but that the prime minister “hesitated” — refusing to commit to returning Israeli residents to their homes in the north by Sept. 1, the start of the new school year.
Local council head Moshe Davidovich said hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed across northern Israel.
It is only a small glimpse of the destruction Hezbollah would be likely to inflict in a full-scale war — expected to bring widespread power outages, massive rocket and missile barrages, and intense ground combat against well-trained and well-equipped fighters battling on familiar terrain.
Hezbollah is believed to have more than twice as many fighters as Hamas, and more than four times as many munitions, including guided missiles. Concerns that Israel is unprepared are now being voiced openly.
"The reserves and the regular army system have been worn to the bone," Yair Golan, leader of Israel's Labor party and a former deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, told an Israeli radio station last month.
"Israel is used to fighting short wars," said Yoel Guzansky, a former official on Israel’s National Security Council and now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. "But after nine months, the IDF is exhausted, the equipment needs to be taken care of, the munitions have been used up, and every family in Israel is affected by it."
But an Israeli invasion of Lebanon could be a "trap," said Guzansky, pulling Israel into another grueling war with no endgame.
"There is a false belief in Israel that a war there could be finished in a number of days or weeks," he said.
Scenes of devastation in Lebanon would also intensify international pressure on Israel and increase tensions with Washington.
K.N
resource : Saba
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