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Hizbullah's Deadly Rockets Aren't the Most Serious Threat to Israel's Northern Border
(Los Angeles Times) Matthew Levitt - Israel and Hizbullah stand at the brink of full-scale war for the first time since 2006. But more dire than Hizbullah's rocket arsenal is the threat that it will launch an Oct. 7-style ground incursion into Israel. Since the day after Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre, Hizbullah has been firing rockets into Israel almost daily. More than 60,000 Israeli civilians displaced from their homes along the border with Lebanon will not return until the threat posed by Hizbullah ground forces is dealt with. They have good reason for concern. The Hamas massacre came straight out of Hizbullah's playbook. The Israeli military has been actively training for years to counter a Hizbullah plot to overrun Israeli communities, kill and kidnap civilians. Across the political spectrum, Israelis agree that they can no longer live with a gun to their heads, not from the south or from the north. The idea that enemies sworn to destroy them can be allowed to amass massive arsenals on their borders is no longer tenable. That means that Israel will ultimately have to address both Hizbullah's rocket stockpile and its 30,000-strong standing militia. The writer is director of the program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.