The United States fears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will unleash a war against the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. This is what the American newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ writes. Netanyahu would like to make an attempt to save his political career in this way. The US, on the other hand, is doing everything it can to avoid such an escalation. “It is in no one’s interest for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza,” it said.
‘The Washington Post’ spoke to a dozen officials and diplomats who work for US President Joe Biden. The conversations had one constant: the Americans are afraid that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will, in addition to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, also fight the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah.
In this way, Netanyahu would like to save his political career, it sounds. The Israeli prime minister has been fiercely criticized for months because he failed to repel the bloody Hamas attack of October 7, despite many warnings. As a reminder, at least 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack. Hundreds of others were taken hostage.
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Avoid escalation
According to ‘The Washington Post’, President Biden has sent his delegates, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to Israel with a concrete goal: to avoid an escalation. Washington wants to do everything it can to prevent a devastating war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
“It is in no one’s interest – not Israel’s, not the region’s, not the world’s – for this conflict to expand beyond Gaza,” Blinken’s spokesman Matt Miller underlined.
Israel has repeatedly emphasized that the regular firefights with Hezbollah on the border are “unsustainable.” Fears are increasing that the country will soon launch a military operation in Lebanon. “We prefer a diplomatic settlement,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last Friday. “But we are approaching the moment when the hourglass will turn.”
Death toll from 300,000 to 500,000
Hassan Nasrallah, who is considered the leader of Hezbollah, also warned earlier this week about a war between Israel and Lebanon. “Currently we are fighting in a calculated manner, but if the enemy thinks to launch a war against Lebanon, we will fight without borders, without restrictions, without rules and controls.”
According to experts, a large-scale conflict between Israel and Lebanon would far exceed the death toll of the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006 (at least 1,200 Lebanese and 165 Israelis). After all, Hezbollah now has a much larger arsenal of weapons. “The number of victims in Lebanon could reach from 300,000 to 500,000 and trigger a mass evacuation of all of northern Israel,” emphasizes Bilal Saab, a Lebanon expert from the American think tank ‘The Middle East Institute’.
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