Last Updated on September 30, 2024
The United States government says that Israel is planning a “limited ground operation” to invade Lebanon, where Israel has spent the past several days launching air and artillery strikes, killing hundreds, including top members of Hezbollah leadership. On the very same day that this news was reported, Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement to “the people of Iran,” calling for regime change and vowing that “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.”
The Washington Post is reporting that a source inside the United States government, as well as an Israeli who’s “familiar” with the situation, say that Israel is preparing to invade Lebanon.
According to the report from The Washington Post:
“Israel is planning a limited ground operation in Lebanon that could start imminently, Israel has told Washington, a U.S. official said — an account corroborated by an Israeli familiar with military deliberations.”
And according to the same Washington Post report, Israeli ground operations in Lebanon are already underway:
“On Monday, Israeli forces carried out limited raids in Lebanon, according to the Israeli familiar with the operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.”
The news of Israel’s invasion plans comes more than a week after reports surfaced that the Israelis had declared the northern region of their country a conflict zone and had told their troops to prepare to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It also comes after an extended exchange of fire between the two sides, which has persisted, with varying intensity, since Israel went to war with Hamas last year, leading several Islamic nations and militant groups, including Hezbollah and its Iranian allies, to pledge their support to Hamas.
On the other hand, the United States and most of its Western allies pledged their support to Israel, and have at times directly intervened in the conflict, putting the world on the brink of a full-scale war in the Middle East.
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In recent weeks and days, hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have reached their highest point since the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which yielded an “inconclusive” result for the IDF, despite reportedly outnumbering Hezbollah by a margin of 30 to 1. The conflict lasted just over one month and both sides sustained hundreds of casualties, including civilians.
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Through Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon, which began with their now-infamous pager bombing campaign, much of Hezbollah’s chain of command has been wiped out, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed at least six Beirut apartment buildings.
Days before Israel’s invasion plans went public, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that Israel would be receiving another $8.7 billion worth of American aid, alongside Ukraine, which will receive another $7.9 billion.
What’s more, is that on the very day that The Washington Post broke the invasion news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video address to the people of Iran, vowed that “there is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach.”
