Israel is preparing for a prolonged military campaign against the Lebanese group "Hezbollah", which will likely last longer than the war against Iran, Israeli officials said, quoted by the "Financial Times" newspaper, BTA reported.
These sources familiar with the military plans said that the Israeli offensive against "Hezbollah", which began after the pro-Iranian group fired rockets at targets in northern Israel, would last at least as long as the military operation against Iran, and the fighting would continue even after a peace agreement with Tehran was concluded.
"The goal is to inflict enough damage "...to ensure that the residents of northern Israel do not live in constant fear of evacuation," an Israeli official said, referring to previous evacuations of Israeli communities during previous clashes with Hezbollah.
"The Israelis are preparing international players for the possibility that the war with Hezbollah will drag on and last longer than the war with Iran," an Arab diplomat noted.
There are diplomatic initiatives to prevent a larger Israeli operation, with France offering to help disarm Hamas, and Lebanese officials openly stating that they are willing to hold direct talks with Israel.
Israeli authorities have discussed a new offensive against Hezbollah even before the start of the Israeli-American military operation against Iran, another source familiar with the military plans said.
Border skirmishes escalated into a full-scale war in Lebanon in October 2024, after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel following the start of the Hamas offensive in October 2023.
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire formally ended the fighting, but Israel continued to launch near-daily strikes on Hezbollah targets, insisting that the group's disarmament was not happening quickly enough. It was expected as part of the terms of the ceasefire by the US, Israel and the Lebanese government, but rejected by "Hezbollah" itself.
The military action escalated again last week after Israel launched a large-scale attack on "Hezbollah", which launched missiles and drones in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an Israeli-American operation against Iran.
Since then, Israeli forces have hit more than 600 sites in Lebanon, with the strikes concentrated mostly in the southern parts of the country and the densely populated southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. This has prompted the largest evacuation of Lebanese citizens since the end of the war in 2024.