BEIRUT (AFP) – Fears of a regional war rose yesterday after Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict, and Israel said it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive.
Experts are divided on the prospect of wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s vow to eradicate Hamas.
On Wednesday Israel’s top army spokesman said Hamas, as an ideology, cannot be eliminated.
Others, including United States (US) Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have also pointed to the difficulty of destroying the group.
In a televised address, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if war began.
The group has exchanged near-daily fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, but the fire from Hezbollah rockets, Israeli warplanes and other weapons has escalated in the past few weeks.
On Tuesday Israel’s military announced that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated”, and Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned of Hezbollah’s destruction in a “total war”.
US envoy Amos Hochstein called for “urgent” de-escalation.
Two former Israeli security officials were split on the prospect of wider conflict. One told AFP there would be an operation in Lebanon “within a few weeks” while another said the government was “more interested in a ceasefire”.
The cross-border violence has killed at least 478 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.
Tens of thousands have been displaced on the Israeli side of the frontier, and the UN’s International Organization for Migration says more than 95,000 have been uprooted in Lebanon.
In southern Gaza, a United Nations assessment mission found hundreds of thousands of displaced people “suffer from poor access to shelter, health, food, water and sanitation”, a UN report said late on Wednesday.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said there had been “an improvement” in aid reaching northern Gaza “but a drastic deterioration in the south”.
