Israeli fighter jets bomb south Lebanon as tension with Hezbollah rises

Amid growing tension with Hezbollah, the Israeli army bombed a series of cities in southern Lebanon this Monday (24). The Israeli offensive in the country could increase the risk of a wider war in the Middle East, says an American general.

The Israeli army’s air force launched a strike with fighter jets in the border region with Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah military targets in the cities of Khiam, Ramyeh and Aalma El Chaeb. There is still no news on the number of civilian or military deaths and injuries.

The offensive was a response to the launch of an anti-tank missile launched from Lebanon on Sunday night (23) and which left two Israeli soldiers injured. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack.

🔴#Tonightthe IDF allegedly launched a massive #attack on #Hezbollah. pic.twitter.com/epDhM0vMc2

— News.Az (@news_az) June 24, 2024

The exchange of aggression between the Islamic Hezbollah faction and the Israeli army has grown in recent weeks and could take on new forms in the coming months.

Last week Hezbollah carried out its biggest attack against Israel since October 7th. More than 200 projectiles were identified by Israeli forces, and the group promised to intensify the offensive.

The action was in response to the death of a senior faction commander who was killed in a Tel Aviv airstrike a day earlier. At the beginning of June, in another attack, a Brazilian woman was seriously injured in another bombing in southern Lebanon.

This Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the “intense phase of the war with Hamas [na Faixa de Gaza] is about to end,” and that the military’s focus could then shift to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, warned this Friday (21) that the world would not support Lebanon becoming another Gaza Strip.

“A hasty move, a miscalculation, could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the pale and, frankly, beyond imagination. Let us be clear: the people of the region and the people of the world cannot bear Lebanon becoming another Gaza,” said Guterres.

Netanyahu says the deployment of troops to the border with Lebanon would be “first and foremost for defensive purposes,” but that the redeployment would also allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket and missile attacks to return to their homes. .

Israel’s main ally, the United States has warned Netanyahu’s far-right government that the offensive in Lebanon has the potential to provoke Iran’s entry into the conflict.

Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran “would be more inclined to support Hezbollah” than Hamas, “especially if they felt that Hezbollah was being significantly threatened.” .

HAS CNNthree American officials said they have serious concerns that, in the event of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist group could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses in the north — including the much-vaunted “Iron Dome” air defense system. ” (or Iron Dome, in Portuguese).

Fears that the Iron Dome could be vulnerable to Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of missiles and drones are only growing as Israel has increasingly indicated to U.S. officials that it is preparing for a ground war and aerial incursion into Lebanon.