The alleged Israeli attack on Hezbollah members via their pagers is one other ominous development that pushes the Middle East toward a full-scale regional war, leaving Hezbollah with few options but to retaliate with the total support of the Iranian-led “resistance axis.”
The sophistication and impact of the pager attack is unprecedented. The attack caused a minimum of 11 deathsincluding some Hezbollah fighters and as much as 3000 people early.
The most important goal of the attack, which was planned by US officials, they supposedly said carried out by Israel, was aimed toward disrupting Hezbollah’s communications and command and control system in Lebanon.
Because Hezbollah has using mobile phones has been restricted by its forces because Israel can easily detect and goal them, pagers have increasingly grow to be the popular messaging tool inside this group.
The attack may have been intended to create panic within the group and among the many Lebanese public, lots of whom don’t support Hezbollahconsidering the political divisions within the country.
Since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7, Israeli authorities led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly said that specified to remove the threat from Hezbollah, which acts in solidarity with Hamas.
Hours before the attack on the Netanyahu government’s pagers explained that Israel’s war goals shall be expanded to incorporate the return of tens of hundreds of residents to their homes in northern Israel, from which they fled incessant Hezbollah rocket fire. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that the one strategy to try this is thru military motion.
The simultaneous pager explosions on Tuesday could subsequently be a prelude to a broad Israeli offensive against Hezbollah.
Consequences of the war with Hezbollah
Hezbollah has already vowed to retaliate. What form that can take stays to be seen. The group has the military potential to not only bombard northern Israel with drones and missiles, but in addition attack other parts of the Jewish state, including densely populated cities like Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah demonstrated this capability within the 2006 war with Israel. The war lasted 34 days, during which 165 Israelis died (121 IDF soldiers and 44 civilians) and Israel’s economy and tourism industry were significantly damaged. Hezbollah and Lebanese losses were much higher, with a minimum of 1,100 people killed. However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) didn’t destroy or immobilize Group.
AP
Any successful retaliatory strike on Israeli cities could lead to serious civilian casualties, giving Israel one other pretext to pursue its long-held goal of destroying Hezbollah and punishing its most important sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the broader conflict, the United States has pledged to defend Israel, while Iran would support Hezbollah in any way vital. If Israeli and U.S. leaders consider that Iran will proceed to refrain from any motion that might push it into war with Israel and the U.S., they’re mistaken.
Hezbollah is a central a part of the regime’s national and regional security paradigm. Tehran has invested heavily within the group, as produce other regional affiliates—notably Iraqi militias, the Yemeni Houthis, and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The goal of this “axis of resistance” was to construct a strong deterrent against Israel and the United States.
Since its founding 45 years ago, the Iranian regime has viewed Israel and its principal sponsor, the United States, as existential threats, just as Israel viewed Iran in the identical way. To that end, the regime has reoriented its foreign relations toward America’s principal adversaries, notably Russia and China. Russian-Iranian military cooperation has grow to be so strong that Moscow can have no qualms about supporting Iran and its allies in any war.
Tehran is fully aware of Israel’s nuclear potential. To protect itself against it, Iran has developed its own nuclear program threshold level developing weapons. Iranian leaders could also obtain assurances from Russia that it might help defend Iran if Israel resorted to using nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, it should be remembered that after almost a yr of destroying Gaza and exterminating its inhabitants, Israel has didn’t annihilate Hamas.
His own actions are evidence of this. He has consistently forced Gazans to relocate in order that IDF soldiers can operate in areas they previously deemed freed from militants.
The task of defeating Hezbollah and its supporters could be a much larger goal to realize. It carries with it the grave risk of a war that each one sides say they are not looking for, but for which they’re all preparing.
The pager attack is just the most recent in a series of actions that proceed to threaten the probabilities for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza that might stabilize the region and contribute to peace, not war.