The simmering tensions between Israel and Lebanon threaten to expand the war already ongoing in the Middle East.
Israel's military said Monday it struck a Hezbollah military site in response to a number of launches from that area into Israel, while leaders reiterated the need to push back against such a threat.
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“In response to launches from Lebanon toward communities in the western Galilee earlier today, IDF fighter jets struck a Hezbollah military site,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that a “number of launches were also identified from Lebanon toward IDF posts in northern Israel. The IDF struck the sources of fire.”
War Cabinet minister Benny Gantz discussed the threats posed by Hezbollah during his conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday, though the readout of their call from the U.S. State Department did not mention the Lebanon-based terrorist group.
"I expressed to the Secretary that heightened aggression and increased attacks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah on Israel demand of Israel to remove such threat from the civilian population of northern Israel," Gantz said. "I added that the international community in particular has an important role to play these days and it must act to ensure that the State of Lebanon stops such aggression adjacent to the border."
The chief of staff of Israel’s military, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday that Hezbollah risked pushing Israel to make a “very clear change” in the confrontation, while Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned last week that Israel would “act with all the means at its disposal” to push Hezbollah away from its border.
Hezbollah is a more advantaged and sophisticated terrorist group than Hamas, which is based in the Gaza Strip. Hamas ignited its own war with Israel by carrying out the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that left roughly 1,200 people dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians. Hezbollah has an arsenal of an estimated 150,000 missiles, about 10 times the number of Hamas’s estimated supply, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Israel has evacuated tens of thousands of civilians in border towns near its border with Lebanon in the north as it prepares for a possible second war front to open there.
"My concern would be that at some point in time, maybe the casualty count, the conflict in Gaza escalates or doesn't abate, and at some point Hezbollah feels the need to get involved and begin firing large volumes of rockets and missiles from southern Lebanon into Israel," former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper previously told the Washington Examiner regarding the threat posed by Hezbollah.
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The Second Lebanon War, fought between Lebanon and Israel, ended in 2006 with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which barred Hezbollah from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani River, which is located about 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah has largely violated the resolution.
"We absolutely don't want to see this conflict spill over into Lebanon," National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said on Monday. "We don't want to see a second front. We don't want to see it escalate and widen."