Netanyahu asserts Israel may act militarily against Hezbollah if diplomacy fails

The IDF must be free to act to end attacks by the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US special envoy Amos Hochstein, who visited Israel in hopes of securing a diplomatic resolution to the constrained war along the country’s northern border with Lebanon.

“Israel appreciates and respects the support of the United States but in the end will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the North to their homes safely,” the Prime Minister’s Office said Monday as it paraphrased Netanyahu’s messages to Hochstein.

Netanyahu reiterated to Hochstein the same message he gave the government on Sunday.“It will not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the North,” Netanyahu said.

But while Netanyahu hinted at a military solution, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke about it openly. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the Biden administration was committed to a diplomatic resolution to the IDF-Hezbollah conflict.

Miller said, “We have long made clear that we believe a diplomatic solution is the correct way, the only way, to bring calm to the north of Israel and allow Israeli citizens to return to their homes.”

At issue are the more than 60,000 Israelis who were forced to evacuate their homes along the northern border when the constrained IDF-Hezbollah war broke on October 8, one day after Hamas invaded southern Israel.Israel has insisted that for its citizens to return home, Hezbollah must abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and withdraw to the Litani River.

Wider war with Hezbollah amid diplomatic efforts

Hochstein was meeting in Israel with Netanyahu, Gallant, and President Isaac Herzog as part of his continuing efforts to calm the situation in the North diplomatically. He arrived amid an intense debate as to whether Israel should now embark on a wider war with Hezbollah. The security cabinet was set to meet late Monday night.

It was a debate made more complicated by persistent reports that Netanyahu, for political reasons, was considering firing Gallant and replacing him with National Unity Party head MK Gideon Sa’ar.

Gallant has pushed Netanyahu to prioritize a wider war with Hezbollah – in which the IDF would enter Lebanon to push the Iranian proxy group back to the Litani River – over the existing war with Hamas.

“The only way left to return the residents of the North to their homes is via military action,” Gallant told Hochstein.He said that time for diplomatic action was running out as Hezbollah continues to “tie itself” to Hamas and refuses to end the conflict, according to the Defense Ministry.

Gallant “emphasized the importance of US support for Israel’s right to self-defense and for Israel’s commitment to returning citizens to their homes in northern Israel following a change in the security situation in the area,” the Defense Ministry said.

Gallant related the same message in a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin earlier in the day.Miller said that in the Biden administration’s “conversations with Israeli officials, they have always made clear, as you I think you’ve heard them say publicly on a number of occasions, that they would ultimately prefer a diplomatic resolution.”

French Ambassador to Israel Frederic Journes said there can be no diplomatic solution to the IDF-Hezbollah violence in the North without a Gaza ceasefire.

“Hezbollah sees itself as the so-called Axis of Resistance,” Journes said at the Haaretz National Security Conference on Monday. “If they accept... a separate settlement with Israel while the war is ongoing in Gaza, it means they abandon Hamas.”

The absence of a Gaza ceasefire is “this huge thing, which has been blocking everything, which is limiting our efforts, which is limiting American efforts,” Journes said.

Nobody wants a wider war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Journes explained. “Iran doesn’t want it. Hezbollah doesn’t want it. Israel doesn’t want it. And yet, it’s very possible that it happens, even though everybody more or less agrees on the parameters” of a resolution to that northern conflict, he added.

The region had braced for such a wider war in August after the IDF assassinated Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, but in the end, the situation had calmed down without such an outbreak.