The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has officially approved plans for an “offensive in Lebanon” against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group illegally occupying southern Lebanon that has been firing at northern Israel since October.
In a statement, the IDF said:
Today (Tuesday), the Commanding Officer of the Northern Command, MG Ori Gordin, and the Head of the Operations Directorate (J3), MG Oded Basiuk, approved operational plans and held a joint situational assessment in the Northern Command.
As part of the situational assessment, operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated, and decisions were taken on the continuation of increasing the readiness of troops in the field.
Israel has been warning for weeks that war is likely unless Hezbollah stops its attacks. President Joe Biden sent Special Envoy Amos Hochstein to Israel and Lebanon this week in an effort to calm tensions, but that appears to have failed.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah released footage of potential targets in northern Israel that it said it had taken using a surveillance drone, evading Israeli defenses. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted an unusually public, direct message urging the Biden administration to stop withholding weapons and ammunition. (The White House said it did not know what he meant, though President Joe Biden withheld some arms shipments in May.)
Israel was forced to evacuate some 60,000 residents of northern border towns in October, most of whom remain internal refugees today. There are as many as 100,000 IDF soldiers deployed along the northern border of Israel, and there have been some commando missions by the IDF inside Lebanon itself, possibly exploring and destroying defenses against a larger attack.
Breitbart News visited the border in November and in April.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.