Northern Israel in Flames as Biden Focuses on Criticizing Netanyahu and Ending Gaza War

While President Biden concentrates on Gaza, northern Israel is literally in flames. In indicating that Prime Minister Netanyahu is extending the war for his own political reasons, the president is ignoring a front where a potential bloody war could last far beyond the November election.“There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion,” Mr. Biden told Time magazine late last week, when asked if Mr. Netanyahu is prolonging the Gaza war for political reasons. Yet, the president retracted his assessment during a Tuesday speech at the White House. One word that increasingly worries Israelis — Hezbollah — went unmentioned at the White House, or in the Time interview, which was published Tuesday. “We have been training for eight months for an operation in the north,” the Israel Defense Force chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said Tuesday. “We are ready,” and “a moment is nearing when we need to make a decision.”Following an escalation of Hezbollah attacks, Israel is contemplating additional targeting in Lebanon, according to Israeli news reports after an emergency cabinet meeting Tuesday. In Lebanon, a Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper, al-Akhbar, claims Israel will launch an all-out war in mid-June. Lebanon-based Hezbollah started attacking Israel on October 8, a day after Hamas launched the assault that sparked the Gaza war. Since then, up to 120,000 civilians have been forced to move to hotel rooms from their homes in northern Israel. Tens of thousands of other Israelis run to shelter on a daily basis. Crops are wasted, farm animals are dying, and tourism-related businesses are being ruined. Last month, northern Israel experienced the most intense Hezbollah attacks yet, according to a think tank based in the area, Alma. The month of May saw “a significant increase in the number of incidents in the employment of anti-tank missiles and UAVs, twofold as many as in April,” Alma reports.This week, the war is nearing a literal boiling point. Dozens of Hezbollah mortars and drones were launched on Sunday and Monday, igniting fires in a wide range of northern Israel. Extremely hot temperatures and strong winds further fanned the flames. Televised images of raging forest fires and burnt homes at the area’s largest city, Kiryat Shmona, stunned Israelis. “When I’m watching Kiryat Shamona I fear that my parents’ house there, the home I grew up in, will burn next,” a Kan news reporter, Uriah Elkayam, said. “We have long trusted the IDF to deal with Hezbollah, but now I’m not so sure.”On Tuesday, a centrist politician who joined the government’s war room last October, Benny Gantz, called an emergency cabinet meeting to review strategy regarding the crisis in the north. Mr. Gantz has long advocated for more muscular action against Hezbollah. British emissaries warned Lebanon that Israel is planning a large-scale offensive in mid-June, Lebanon’s al-Akhbar reported Tuesday. Beirut must “make the necessary provisions for the war,” the newspaper added in a report that was widely cited in the Israeli press. “We need to remember that al-Akhbar is a Hezbollah mouthpiece,” Alma’s top researcher, Tal Beeri, tells the Sun. “We shouldn’t exclude the possibility that Hezbollah is preparing an excuse to launch a major attack that would force Israel into an all-out war.” Iran is widely reported to be urging Hezbollah to hold back attacks on Israel in order to prevent an all-out war that could decimate the Islamic Republic’s most prized proxy. Yet, the terrorist group’s ever-escalating attacks could undermine that goal. Hezbollah might not have planned to ignite fires in Israel’s north, but the flames sure turned the attention of many Israelis to that already-burning front. Israel has long targeted top commanders of the terror organization, as well as its weapons infrastructure. Northerners, though, are increasingly dissatisfied with the prospect that such actions could help them to return home anytime soon. In a phone call on Tuesday, President Macron of France asked Mr. Netanayhu to avoid escalating the war, while French and American emissaries are attempting a diplomatic solution to the hostilities. A top White House Mideast adviser, Amos Hochstein, is aiming to reach an agreement to push Hezbollah fighters away from the Israeli border.Washington officials meanwhile are pleading with Jerusalem to allow time for a deal to be reached on hostage release and a Gaza cease-fire before planning any military operation on the Lebanese front. Beyond Israel, very little attention is paid to Hezbollah’s intensifying attacks. Even if an all-out confrontation is yet to materialize, the fires in the north are a reminder that it takes just one errant shot to launch a Lebanon war complete with a region-wide bloodbath.With the world’s press mostly ignoring Hezbollah, Israel would likely be blamed for such a war. Yet, Mr. Biden might, for his own political reasons, want the Mideast to calm before November. If so, he could turn his attention to Tehran and its Hezbollah puppet, rather than forever focusing on Israel’s elected premier.

Northern Israel in Flames as Biden Focuses on Criticizing Netanyahu and Ending Gaza War

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