Israel’s continuous attack on Gaza has intensified the long-brewing war between the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon and Israel, which has been simmering for months or perhaps years. What was once conjecture but is now confirmed fact is as startling: There is a full-fledged conflict going on between Israel and Hezbollah.
The level of fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah has dramatically increased during the past 13 days. The mass murder campaign by Mossad, which used pagers and walkie-talkies targeting Hezbollah members, killed scores and injured thousands against a backdrop of airstrikes and rocket attacks. Following were a flurry of airstrikes and counterattacks with rockets.
Israel began its largest air assault in years on September 23, a day after threatening to destroy southern Lebanon and force its people to flee. The majority of Israel’s air force was used to strike nearly 1,300 targets, primarily in the southern part of Lebanon.
The level of air raids has never been this high in recent memory. Four days later, in a savage decapitation hit that flattened several buildings in the built-up region, 85 “bunker-buster” bombs were dropped on a southern neighborhood of Beirut, killing Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as well as the group of top commanders he was meeting.
Despite this, Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and missiles at Israeli targets. An air campaign will not be the solution to Israel’s problems. Hezbollah has prepared for this exact scenario for years and has dispersed its rocket forces all over the country. So what’s the plan?