Israel warns that likelihood of going to war in Lebanon is ‘higher than before’

Photo: Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli airstrike. AFP via Getty Images

The chief of staff for the Israeli Defense Forces warned that “the likelihood of war” in Lebanon was at an all-time high following the latest series of missile strikes between the IDF and Hezbollah. 

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Wednesday that Israel is “increasing readiness for fighting in Lebanon” while speaking to troops stationed near the Lebanese border, the Times of Israel reports. 

“I don’t know when the war in the north [will happen]. I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past,” Halevi said.

He noted that the IDF would be focused on allowing the more than 80,000 Israelis displaced in the north to return home. They were forced to move due to the daily attacks from Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia based in Lebanon that supports Hamas.

Should war break out in the north, Halevi warned Hezbollah that the Israeli response would be even swifter than when it launched its counterattack against Hamas.

The message came just minutes after the IDF took out a militant cell in southern Lebanon after the group fired a rocket barrage at the northern Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra. 

The group of militants were hit within minutes of the attack against the Israeli town, the IDF said, 

Hamas had claimed responsibility for the attack, which it claims was carried out by its Lebanon branch. The group said that only one of its members was killed in the Israeli strike. 

Following the attack against the militant cell, the IDF carried out several airstrikes in southern Lebanon, destroying a Hezbollah-operated rocket launching site and other infrastructure.

As of Sunday, the IDF reports that five Israeli civilians have been killed as a result of the skirmishes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants since the war in Gaza began, with another 10 soldiers and reservists killed in the conflicts. 

The increased tension along the Israeli-Lebanon border has sparked fears that the war in Gaza will expand and throw the entire region into chaos. 

Along with Hezbollah, the Yemen-based Houthi rebel group has launched a series of attacks against shipping vessels in the Red Sea in support of its Hamas allies, threatening global supply routes.

The Houthis have stated that their attacks against Israeli-linked ships will not stop even after the US re-listed the militants as a terror organization. 

The hostilities from the Iran-backed terror groups come as the nation’s foreign minister,  Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed Wednesday that the violence will only come to an end when the war in Gaza ends.

“If the genocide in Gaza stops, then it will lead to the end of other crises and attacks in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said at a World Economic Forum in Switzerland. 

The Iranian foreign minister also told CNN that his nation is nearing “a real substantive peace agreement,” with Yemeni and Saudi leaders regarding the Houthis’ interference in global trade, as Iran depends on the impacted routes for its oil exports.

NY POST/ NEWS AGENCIES