Lemma Shehadi
The National / July 28, 2024
Fears grow that all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah could trigger a wider regional conflict.
Israel will respond to the attack on the occupied Golan Heights by targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Lebanon in an attempt to push the Iran-backed militia away from its northern border, an Israeli official told UK media on Sunday.
Chairman of Israel’s foreign affairs and defence committee, Yuli Edelstein, said Israel “will have to react” to Saturday’s attack on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which killed 12 children from the Syrian Druze community.
“It’s terrible to mourn 12 young children but, at the same time, it leads us to the obvious conclusion,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
“We can’t live here peacefully, develop our country, strike new peace accords with our neighbours as long as we will be threatened by Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south and by Iranians running this whole show.”
The Israeli military announced it had retaliated with strikes on seven Hezbollah targets “deep inside Lebanese territory” on Sunday morning.
Hezbollah denies it launched Saturday’s attack – but claimed four others fired into Israeli territory at the same time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the group would “pay a heavy price” for Saturday’s attack, amid fears that all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah could trigger a wider regional conflict.
Yet Edelstein insisted that any retaliatory operation would not be “in terms of revenge” but as part of an effort to “continue destroying the infrastructure” of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
“We will have to react not to react in terms of revenge, but to react in terms of getting rid of that danger and bringing back dozens of thousands of Israeli citizens who right now can’t be in their homes now in northern border, and had to be evacuated to the centre of the country,” he said.
The attack came days after Israel’s education minister announced that schools along the country’s northern border would not re-open in September, prompting speculation that Israel was planning further operations in southern Lebanon.
Israel’s first aim would be to push Hezbollah away from its northern border, Edelstein added, but he did not rule out any attempts to “get rid” of the organization altogether.
“It should be part of the effort to get rid of Hezbollah on our border, to get them as far away as possible or even to get rid of the terrorist organization altogether,” he said.
The escalation comes as the UK is expected to review the legality of arms sales to Israel, in a series of decisions that mark a shift in the new Labour government’s approach to the conflict.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the UK would be dropping its challenge to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s request for the arrest warrant of Netanyahu on Friday, and UK funding to UNRWA was restored in July, reversing key Conservative policies on the conflict.
Edelstein said the decision to drop the UK’s challenge to the ICC was “very disappointing” and a “strategic mistake”. “If you can do it to Israel, you can do it to any other democracy in the world defending itself from terrorist attacks,” he said.
Lemma Shehadi – Senior Correspondent, London
