By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-22 06:02:59 | Updated at 2024-09-30 23:43:55
1 week ago
Israel’s shift to a riskier, more aggressive posture towards Lebanon’s Hezbollah – exploding pagers, striking Beirut and targeting commanders – came about both suddenly and gradually.
Suddenly, because there were indications that Hezbollah members had become suspicious about the booby-trapped pagers, so a decision to set them off was made at the last minute, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And gradually, because Israel’s military has been preparing since 2006 for war with the Iran-backed group.
The attacks mark a new approach aimed at pre-emptively degrading Hezbollah’s military prowess so that the group will not be able to launch an attack similar to the October 7 strike by Hamas on southern Israel, officials say. A second goal is to create the conditions that might drive a hobbled Hezbollah to make concessions about how close its troops and missiles will remain to the Israeli border.
Ceasefire talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Hamas have been deadlocked for weeks, despite the militia having been largely smashed by a nearly year-long war. Hezbollah has said it will not stop bombing Israel until the Gaza war stops, which is keeping tens of thousands of northern Israelis as internal refugees. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are considered terrorist organisations by the US.
Israel has added the return of those Israelis to their homes as an official war goal, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that operations were shifting from Gaza to the north in what he called a new phase of the war.
