TOI Staff
Times of Israel, Dec. 9, 2023
“The Americans have not set any deadline. … They understand that they can’t tell the IDF how long it needs to achieve the goals. They share the goals of returning the hostages — a campaign that a date cannot be set for — and of destroying Hamas. Therefore, the assessment [that achieving the goals of the war in Gaza] cannot be measured in weeks is correct, and I’m not sure it can be measured in months.”
National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi indicated on Saturday night that once Hamas is defeated in Gaza, Israel may have to go to war against Hezbollah across the northern border in Lebanon.
While the Jewish state has long been worried by the threat posed to Israel by Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, its prime concern in the wake of the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas on October 7, said Hanegbi, is that Hezbollah’s Radwan force could attempt a similar murderous invasion from the north, targeting civilians in communities near the border.
Israel, he acknowledged, was tackling Hamas “17 years too late,” and it could no longer dare to tolerate the danger of the prevailing situation in the north, with Hezbollah’s forces at the border.
Some 60,000 residents of border communities have been evacuated from the north since October 7, amid relentless and sometimes deadly clashes across the border between Hezbollah and Israel.
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