Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal
The Hill, June 15, 2024
“With Tehran now capable of enriching up to a bomb’s worth of fissile material in less than two weeks, Israel might not be able to wait much longer to prevent a nuclear Iran.”
Gaza is but one front in a wider Iran-Israel conflict that is already shifting northward to Lebanon. Recent senior Israeli warnings suggest a full-scale war between Israel and Iran’s powerful proxy Hezbollah is becoming more a question of when and not if.
Immediately after Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, Israeli leaders feared that Hezbollah, with its 150,000-rocket arsenal and precision-guided munitions, might attack next and debated, but ultimately decided against, preempting it.
Israeli fears were not unfounded. In the past eight months, Hezbollah has launched almost 5,000 shorter-range projectiles at close-by Israeli communities, a significant amount that is increasingly intolerable.
Some 80,000 Israelis — the equivalent of about 3 million Americans — have either been made or chosen to flee their homes in the north. Meanwhile, the casualties —18 soldiers and at least nine civilians — and damage, including a recent wildfire, are mounting.
Israel has punished Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and beyond, seeking to create a buffer zone of up to 13 kilometers and enable Israelis to return to their northern homes. But that, coupled with U.S. mediation, hasn’t yet led to an agreement with Hezbollah.
Even if fighting in the north stops, any calm could be short-lived. After Oct. 7, Israel is no longer willing or able to coexist with Iranian-backed, genocidal terrorists on its borders, particularly one bristling with a rocket arsenal that can overwhelm Israeli air defenses, rain destruction on the country and protect Iran’s nuclear program.
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