After a year of almost daily missile and drone attacks from Lebanon into Israel, the Israel Defence Forces has now stepped up its operations inside Lebanon.
We have witnessed the use of explosive-packed pagers and radios as well as air strikes against senior leaders. The pinnacle of that campaign came last week with the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah for three decades.
Having decimated Hezbollah’s leadership, in the last couple of days the Israel Defence Forces has mounted limited ground raids into southern Lebanon.
This operation might well expand into a full-blown air and ground offensive to push Hezbollah terrorists north at least as far as the Litani River, 18 miles from the Israeli border.
That will include air strikes into the depth of the country to destroy long-range missiles and drones that the terrorists will try to use both to hit IDF troops in southern Lebanon and fire deep into Israeli population centres.
This and the war in Gaza are just two arenas in a seven front war that Israel has been fighting for the last year, including the West Bank, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
The final front is Iran itself, which created, directs, funds and arms this “Ring of Fire” around Israel intended to bring about its destruction.
The ayatollahs are watching in horror as Israel relentlessly degrades their two main proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. The loss of Hezbollah’s military power would be particularly devastating, as the 150,000 rockets in its armoury are there to deter Israeli or US military action against Iran.
As Hezbollah’s future is threatened there is every likelihood that Tehran will now attempt further direct strikes against Israel, along the lines of the failed missile and drone attacks in April.
It is also possible that Iran, directly or through its proxies, will try to strike Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in order to pile pressure on the US to restrain Israel.
So far Israel has resisted US and European demands for a ceasefire both in Gaza and Lebanon. It has been right to do so. There can be no reasoning with the fanatical jihadists bent on its destruction. Any diplomatic solution can be nothing more than a temporary cessation, kicking the can down the road rather than crushing it.
Instead the West should be giving maximum backing to Israel, which has now, through force of arms, put itself into the best possible position to defeat a severely weakened enemy. We should remember that Iran and its terror proxies are not just Israel’s enemies, but the sworn enemies of the Arab world and the West.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan
