Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, at the Pentagon on Tuesday as the United States desperately attempts to prevent an all-out war with Hezbollah.
Israel’s war in Gaza, which has devastated the enclave, is nearing an end, but there’s concern about escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist group based in Lebanon, and the possibility that a full-fledged war between them could embroil the whole region.
“Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want. Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon, and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians,” Austin said ahead of the meeting. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East, and so diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation.”
Israel has been fighting a limited conflict with Hezbollah that has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in both countries since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, but the exchange of rockets and missiles has been overshadowed by the war in Gaza.
“I am extremely concerned about the rise in rocket attacks on Israel’s north from Lebanese Hezbollah and the recent surge in tensions,” the secretary added.
An escalation in rhetoric between Israeli and Hezbollah leaders this month threatens to expand the low-intensity conflict, and ending the war in Gaza would free up resources and personnel for a northern conflict.
The Israel Defense Forces approved military plans for an offensive against Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is believed to have a larger and more sophisticated arsenal than Hamas. An all-out war would likely include heavy casualties and damage to both sides.
The two sides last went to war in 2006, and the conflict lasted for about a month. Hezbollah has violated a United Nations Security Council resolution that ended that war, which bars them from maintaining a presence south of the Litani River, which is located roughly 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border.
“The intense stage of the war with Hamas is about to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. “This does not mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end.”
“We will have the possibility of transferring some of our forces north, and we will do that,” he told Israel’s Channel 14. “First and foremost, for defense.”
The IDF has continued its operations around Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. More than a million Palestinians fled the northern and central part of the enclave to Rafah, but hundreds of thousands of them have since moved elsewhere.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We are clearly approaching the point where we will say we dismantled the Rafah Brigade,” IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi said. “It is decisive not in the sense that it no longer has terrorists but in the sense that it does not know how to function as a fighting unit. It has a lot of casualties.”
Several high-ranking Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, have eluded Israeli forces over the course of the war.