Countdown to war between Israel and Hezbollah has begun - opinion

In the last couple of weeks, it has become clear that a war with Hezbollah is inevitable. It has no longer become a conservation of “if” rather than “when.”

Since October 8, the day after the devastating Hamas massacre, Hezbollah has attacked Israel every day and has been doing so every day since. The group has fired over 5,000 rockets, anti-tank missiles, and explosive-laden drones toward the northern border, forcing 60,000 Israelis in the North out of their homes and turning them into displaced people in their own country with no end date on when they should be going home.

According to senior officials in Israel, the countdown to a potential war with Hezbollah has begun, and Israeli officials have said they have been left with no other choice. For months, Israeli officials have told Hezbollah to back off, or it will be forced to make them do so. Instead of resolving these issues diplomatically and allowing the displaced Israelis to come home, Hezbollah only intensified its attacks.

The Iranian terror proxy in Lebanon made several threats toward Israel last week alone, the first of which was the form of a video that Hezbollah claims is drone footage that entered Israeli airspace and documented several sensitive areas, including the port of Haifa, an Israeli navy base, and what Hezbollah claims is strategic military locations across the northern border. The footage included civilian homes as well as the locations of the Iron Dome and David’s Sling air defense systems.

Hezbollah’s message is clear: they are trying to scare Israelis by showing that they are already familiar with the areas of Israel that they would target, a pure example of psychological warfare. Back in November, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed that the terror group had been sending surveillance drones over Haifa.

Days after releasing this drone footage, Nasrallah threatened Israel again on a televised broadcast. The terror leader said that “no place in Israel will be safe” should they go to war. Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus and other parts of the Mediterranean.

This is a lot of talk coming from an organization that, according to Foreign Minister Israel Katz, would be destroyed in the event of a “total war.” Israel has been put in a position where it now has to decide if it wants to change the status quo. Many in the country and outside of Israel are worried about the ramifications of an all-out war with Lebanon. 

Still, the reality is that Israel has been preparing for this since the October 7 attacks. Israel was on the brink of launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah (like it did in 1967 against Egypt) very early on in the Gaza war.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was ready to attack an unprepared Hezbollah around October 11, mere days after Hamas’s attack, but the strike was called off at the last minute in the war cabinet meeting. Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot argued against a preemptive strike, saying such an attack would have been a “strategic mistake” and would likely have triggered a regional war.

The violation of international law and the war crimes committed by Hezbollah has been met with absolute silence. Human rights groups, the International Criminal Court and world leaders have been, for the most part, silent about Hezbollah’s actions. It seems those who are usually quick to condemn and demonize Israel have no interest in actually preventing a war in the region through diplomacy by calling out and condemning Hezbollah’s aggression.

Hezbollah's unofficial declaration of war

Hezbollah had declared war on Israel the moment it decided to defend Hamas in the Gaza Strip by firing into Israel and acting as a deterrence to Israel’s military campaign. While Israel was not prepared for an attack like October 7 by Hamas in the South, it has always known that Hezbollah was ready and planning to commit the same level of atrocities, including kidnapping hostages and occupying Israeli towns and villages.

The terror group can hit areas outside of Israel’s evacuated areas and well past the northern borders into central major cities. Hezbollah has an Iranian Shi’ite fundamentalist agenda that aims to destroy Israel, and this is not something that Israel can sit idly by and wait for. Israel is well within its right to defend its borders and to prevent any version of October 7 in the future.

In no way do Israelis want a war with Hezbollah. The consequences of it would be utterly devastating for our tiny Jewish nation. Experts explain that most of Hezbollah’s rocket capabilities are short-range, meaning that the entire northern border and the homes of farmers who have lived in the North for years would be destroyed entirely.

Major cities like Haifa and Tel Aviv would also be targeted and hit by Hezbollah fire, causing devastating in the most populated areas. War with Hezbollah means we would be forced to stay in bunkers, potentially cut off from the rest of the world, to avoid the chaos and destruction that can come about from Hezbollah’s attacks.

Israel will do what it needs to do, with or without international support. Still, the ball is in Hezbollah’s court, and the international community has a responsibility to pressure the Iranian terror proxy in Lebanon to stop its attacks and heed Biden’s warning when he said, “Don’t.”

The writer is a social media activist with over 10 years of experience working for Israeli and Jewish causes and cause-based NGOs. She is the co-founder and COO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm specializing in geopolitics.