Israel is on the offensive. Since Monday morning, the IDF has carried out more than 800 strikes on military targets in Lebanon in its pursuit of Hezbollah, a Shiite political party and paramilitary group linked to Iran. Last week, Israel conducted a precision strike in Beirut’s Dahiya neighborhood, killing the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other top commanders.
Earlier, explosives placed in communication devices detonated in two waves, killing dozens of the Shiite group’s operatives and injuring thousands of others. Israel hasn’t taken responsibility for the attacks, but Lebanon blames officials in Jerusalem. Hezbollah has vowed to take revenge.
Those threats have not fallen on deaf ears. Following the elimination of Aqil and the barrages on Israel’s north, communities close to the northern border were advised to avoid gatherings. Residents were instructed to stay close to bomb shelters in the event of yet another salvo; and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy approved a number of action plans in preparation for a looming full-fledged war.
Many Israelis are waiting for such a confrontation. According to a recent poll conducted by channel 14, associated with the country’s right, 71 percent of Israelis backed a military operation in Lebanon. Only 18 percent rejected the move. Another survey showed that 65 percent of Israelis believed their country would win the war.
Yisrael Keller is one of those people. Representing a group called “Fighting for the North” that unites various organizations linked to the right, Keller is a staunch supporter of an offensive on Lebanon and he says that only a war will be able to change many Israelis’ “gloomy reality that includes 15 seconds’ alert before a Hezbollah rocket explodes in one of the towns.”
“Our organization was formed several months after Israel went into Gaza,” he said in reference to the ground incursion that kicked off on October 27. ”Many people of the north have left their houses due to rockets [emanating from Hezbollah - ed.], others were sitting in shelters and we understood that something needed to change for us to be able to go back and live in peace.”
Since the beginning of the war, Hezbollah has launched more than 8,000 rockets towards Israel. As a result, 62,000 Israelis residing up to five kilometers away from the northern border have been evacuated by the government. Thousands of others have left their homes voluntarily, fearing the waves of daily barrages.
Israel has always retaliated. Over the course of the war, the IDF has struck thousands of targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut. It killed commanders and leaders, eliminated launch pads and bases, and disrupted the supply of weapons. That, however, wasn’t enough for the activists of “Fighting for the North.”
“All Israel has been doing was retaliating by attacking the sites from which Hezbollah carried out attacks on our civilians. But what’s the point of this approach?” asked Keller. “The next day Hezbollah would resume fighting, attacking us from a different site. We felt that our response was too mild. It was a plaster, it didn’t uproot the problem, and that needed to change.”
According to Keller, Hezbollah must not only be pushed away from the current border, deeper into the Lebanese territory and beyond the Litani River. It also needs to be disarmed to the extend that it no longer poses a threat to the State of Israel.
The catch is that Hezbollah’s arsenal of weapons might be more than Israel can digest. According to reports, the Shiite group boasts more than 200,000 missiles, rockets and mortars. On top of that, they also have thousands of drones, an impressive system of sophisticated tunnels and an army of 50,000 well-trained and well-equipped fighters, not to mention reservist forces which also comprise 50,000 combatants.
Although some Israeli experts have already warned that a full-fledged war with Lebanon is a bad idea primarily because the Jewish State would find it difficult to cope with several fronts simultaneously, Keller is certain that Israel “has the intelligence, the military might and the technology” to win the battle. The only thing that is missing, he says, is “political will.”
During his tenure of more than a decade, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of looking the other way while Hezbollah was accumulating weapons and technology. Keller does not consider himself to be a staunch Netanyahu critic, but he does believe that the group he represents needs to continue to exert pressure on the prime minister and his government “to bring about the much needed change.”
“We made it clear to the government: we will no longer accept any short-term solutions. The only possible resolution to this conflict can be the disarmament of Hezbollah and its ouster beyond the Litani. What we also need to do is to make sure that the south of Lebanon will be in Israeli hands.”
Israel has long accused Beirut of allowing Hezbollah to act as masters in Lebanon, creating “a state within state,” in the country’s south, known for being a stronghold of the Shiite militia.
Keller is certain that that area should now be turned into a buffer zone. It should be managed by the military, he says, and it might even have Jewish settlements, along the lines of what Israel has erected in the West Bank and in Gaza before the official pullout in 2005.
We no longer believe in a Lebanese government that can restrain Hezbollah. They have failed time and time again. Now we will take matters into our own hands and make sure Hezbollah is no longer a threat.”
Keller and like-minded individuals are not afraid of the international isolation and the economic abyss such a move – a full-fledge war and the potential occupation of southern Lebanon – could bring. For them, Israel’s security comes first.
“Israel has the money to handle it, and our finance minister [Betzalel Smotrich - ed.] is knowledgeable to steer us through. We are willing to wait several months if we know that the goal to wipe Hezbollah off the map materializes. For us, it is a matter of survival because if we don’t eliminate them, the events of October 7 will repeat themselves. This time in the north,” he concluded.
Israel and Lebanon have been at war twice. The First Lebanon War kicked off in 1982 and finished two years later, but Israeli presence in the south of the country only came to an end in May 2000, after the IDF’s total pullout. Six years later, the two nations locked horns again, in what is commonly known as the Second Lebanon War, after the Shiite group killed ten Israeli soldiers.