Fear continues to mount in the Middle East as the Israel-Hezbollah standoff has been intensified with a new row of fire-exchange.
Threat of a new regional conflict appeared evident after Israel revealed its plans for a Lebanon offensive, last week.
Israel has also launched a deadly airstrike in south Lebanon that it claimed has killed one of the group’s operatives.
The Israeli military claimed its jets had targeted two weapons storage facilities and several other sites belonging to the Iran-backed militant group in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, vowed to end Israeli occupation in Palestine, said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel onThursday in retaliation.
The Lebanese resistance group also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions over the course of the day.
It has reportedly launched an attack on an Israeli naval base. Hezbollah fired a squadron of drones on the Israeli maritime site. The pro-Palestine resistance group claimed to have achieved ‘pinpoint accuracy’ in the attack.
Though the official statements from Tel Aviv have denied the claims of Hezbollah saying the occupation forces have successfully intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” from Lebanon, the media reports provide ample evidence for the attacks.
Hezbollah published a video showing drone footage it recorded over northern parts of Israel, including the Israel naval base, Iron Dome factory, and Haifa port.
Meanwhile, on early Friday, Lebanese media reported fresh Israeli strikes in the country’s south.
Threat of a catastrophe
Majority of the experts expressed their serious concern about the prospect of a wider war, if Israel initiates a full-fledged campaign to eradicate Hezbollah.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced “profound concern” over escalating violence and “bellicose rhetoric” between Israel and Hezbollah militants across the frontier with Lebanon.
Speaking to the press on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York, the UN Chief warned that one false move could trigger a catastrophe for the whole region and beyond, Xinhua news agency reported.
“One rash move — one miscalculation — could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the border, and frankly, beyond imagination,” he said.
“Let’s be clear: The people of the region and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” he stressed.
He urged both sides to urgently recommit to the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and immediately return to a cessation of hostilities.
Adopted in 2006, the resolution set in motion a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the establishment of a demilitarised zone.
The UN Chief also stressed the need to protect civilians, ensure that children, journalists and medical workers are not targeted, and ensure the displaced can return to their homes.
“And we do so as we continue to press for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages and a real pathway to a two-state solution,” Guterres concluded.
Israel to face a backlash in the “wider war”?
Meanwhile, an Israeli official, who heads the company that plans Israel’s electrical systems, said the country would become “uninhabitable” after 72 hours if a full-scale war was to break out with Hezbollah.
“We are not in a good situation, and we are not prepared for a real war. We are living in a fantasy,” Shaul Goldstein, head of the Independent System Operator Ltd said.
He issued the warning on Thursday, but later backtracked, according to The Times of Israel.
He added that they would not be able to promise electricity if there was a war, during a conference in the city of Sderot near the Gaza Strip.
“Iron Dome” incapable to face Hezbollah
According to some US officials who spoke to CNN, the Iran-backed militant group could potentially overshadow Israel’s air defences, including the highly-regarded Iron Dome system.
Hezbollah has an arsenal of approximately 1,50,000 rockets and missiles, including thousands of precision munitions.
Earlier this month, it released a video purportedly showing a drone striking and damaging an Iron Dome battery in northern Israel. Although the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reported no damage, the incident has raised alarms about the system’s vulnerability, especially in northern Israel.
The Iron Dome missile defence system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries with US support, has been an excessively boasted facility since its introduction in 2011.
In preparation for a potential conflict with Hezbollah, Israeli officials have even informed the US of plans to shift resources from southern Gaza to northern Israel.
However, Iran has reiterated that Hezbollah is capable of defending itself and Lebanon, stating Israel would be the “ultimate loser” in an all-out war, Al Jazeera reported.
“Any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as that of the 1948 occupied territories,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a social media post.
“Undoubtedly, this war will have one ultimate loser, which is the Zionist regime. The Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, has the capability to defend itself and Lebanon – perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come.”
In response, Foreign Minister Israel Katz issued a threat to Hezbollah on Friday saying “soon we will make the necessary decisions” about confronting the Lebanese group.
“The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war,” Katz said.
Developments in the conflict
Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah had also raised his doubts about Israel’s plans to use airports and bases in Cyprus for military purposes.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” he added without elaborating.
However, Cyprus alleged that Nasrallah’s threat lacks grounding in reality, saying the country enjoys cordial relations with Lebanon.
The conflict could lead to a larger regional war spilling beyond Lebanon’s borders and pull Iran as well as the United States into the scene.
Hezbollah, which calls itself a “support front” to back Palestinian resistance groups, began to target military bases in northern Israel the day after the occupation forces started the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7.
Israel, in response, bombed southern Lebanese villages and Hezbollah positions.
The subsequent chain of clashes was limited to the border areas, though it had displaced thousands of people in Lebanon and Israel.
With the killing of a top Hezbollah commander by Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon last week, the violence has escalated beyond the earlier limits.
Out of caution, the US has pushed for a diplomatic resolution to not to add to the precarity, while expressing concern about Hezbollah’s attacks.
“We have made it quite clear we do not want to see escalation of this conflict,” Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller told the media on Thursday.
As usual, Hezbollah has made it clear that it will continue the fight against the Israeli military until the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, comes to an end.
