Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrullah has threatened to invade northern Israel.
Photo: Shutterstock.
A new large-scale conflict has already been declared in the Middle East. The German newspaper Bild, citing what it believes to be anonymous sources, warned that Israel’s military operation against the Shiite organisation Hezbollah in southern Lebanon could begin in the second half of July. To make it more convincing, it adds that, according to Western diplomats, this will happen “in the third or fourth week of the month”.
On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) press service reported that operational plans for an attack on Lebanese territory have been approved. The other side is also preparing: Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrullah threatened to invade northern Israel the following day.
There is already an “operational space” for military operations: according to estimates by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, 100,000 people have fled their homes in the south of the country due to Israeli bombing. The Israelis speak of 80,000 inhabitants of the north of the country who have left their homes.
Iran’s reaction? Its UN mission said a large-scale Israeli military operation in Lebanon would be the start of a “war of annihilation.”
Kamal Kharazi, head of Iran’s Strategic Council for Foreign Relations and an adviser to the country’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made it clear: the Islamic Republic will support Hezbollah.
KP.RU DOSSIER
Hezbollah (Party of Allah) is a paramilitary political movement. It originated in Lebanon in 1985. It became widely known during the First Lebanon War, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to destroy the bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It represents the interests of the Shiites in Lebanon and its ideology is based, among other things, on the works of the leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Khomeini.
Hezbollah is engaged in a protracted conflict with Israel as part of the Iran-Israeli and Israel-Lebanese confrontation. It controls southern Lebanon, is supported and funded by Iran, and serves as its “mediator” in regional wars.
The main objective of the movement is the elimination of the State of Israel. Hezbollah has between 100,000 and 150,000 well-trained, coordinated and equipped fighters.
AMERICAN GAMES
Although the White House does not like Israel’s desire to start a war with Lebanon, Washington will not stop supporting its ally and supplying it with weapons.
The United States, according to NBC, has already begun to draw forces toward Israel and Lebanon. US Navy landing ships and a Marine Expeditionary Force are in the Mediterranean Sea.
And here the TV channel, citing representatives of the Pentagon, makes a startling confession: this expeditionary detachment of marines – beware! – can be introduced into a conflict zone to prevent an escalation. So: the thugs were already preparing to fight each other at will, and then the American marines arrived and immediately calmed everyone down.
The speech given by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Brookings think tank in Washington is indicative. None of the major players in the region, he said, really wants a new round of conflict: not the Israelis, not the Iranians, not Hezbollah. But, he lamented, there is an inertia that is pushing the region towards a new war. And the United States is, of course, “trying to stop it.”
President Biden, as Washington strongly emphasizes, has managed to reduce the intensity of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and force the parties to enter into negotiations. They are going badly, no one wants to give in. But it is extremely important for the Americans to become successful “brokers” in resolving the conflict in the Middle East. And here the opportunity to put pressure on those who do not give in to persuasion with the threat of a full-scale war is not a solution?
It is no coincidence that Politico, citing US intelligence, issued an important warning: war will begin if the Israeli side and the Palestinian Hamas movement do not reach an agreement on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. That is, if Washington does not receive the laurel branch of a peacemaker in the Middle East, the entire region will be in trouble.
Imagine: the war in Gaza, which sparked protests against Israel even among the Jewish state’s traditional allies, ended with Biden’s intervention in an effective truce and an agreement on the exchange of hostages. Who will then remember the White House owner’s 90 minutes of embarrassment in the recent televised debate with Trump?
But the conflicts in the Middle East have their own logic and lately they are not developing at all according to the American scenario…
