Officials in the US administration and intelligence voiced concerns over a possible Israeli plan to carry out a land inclusion into Lebanon in the late spring or early summer if diplomatic efforts with Hezbollah fail to make it retreat from Israel’s north border.
CNN quoted a senior Biden administration official as saying: “We are operating on the assumption that an Israeli military operation is in the coming months. Not necessarily imminently in the next few weeks but perhaps later this spring. An Israeli military operation is a distinct possibility”, he said.
“I think what Israel is doing is they are raising this threat in the hope that there will be a negotiated agreement,” said the senior official, who has heard differing opinions within the Israeli government about the need to go into Lebanon.
“Some Israeli officials suggest that it is more of an effort at creating a threat that they can utilize. Others speak of it more as a military necessity that’s going to happen,” the official said.
Another senior official in the Biden administration said some officials in the Israeli government and army support a ground incursion into Lebanon.
Since October, around 80 thousand Israelis have been displaced from North Israel.
“The State of Israel will not return to the pre-war status quo in which Hezbollah poses a direct and immediate military threat to its security along the Israel-Lebanon border”, the Israeli embassy in Washington wrote.
Another person familiar with the US intelligence said: “There are fears this will grow to an expansive air campaign reaching much further north into populated areas of Lebanon and eventually grow to a ground component as well”.
Israel‘s top general Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited the northern border Tuesday and said that Hezbollah “must pay a heavy price” for its actions since October 7.
