(RightWing.org) – Iran has fired off a new barrage of threats against Israel among rumors the Jewish state plans to deal with Hezbollah. The Lebanon-based terror group is an Iranian proxy and Tehran has given it vast quantities of weapons. Now Iranian officials are warning of a “formidable defeat” if Israel takes it on.
Since Israel retaliated against Hamas following the October 7 massacre last year, Hezbollah — a Shia terrorist group that dominates southern Lebanon — has been pounding northern Israeli towns with rockets and missiles. In response, Israel has carried out air and artillery strikes against the group.
Several Israeli towns have been evacuated, and patience is running out. The senior commander of the Israeli Defense Forces warned last week that “we are approaching the point where a decision will have to be made” about going into Lebanon to root out Hezbollah from the border area. Iran quickly pushed back with a warning of its own.
On July 5, Newsweek reported that Iranian officials at the United Nations accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to “escalate the crisis” and “expand the geography of the war,” despite Hezbollah being the aggressor. They also claimed that Israel has failed to defeat Hamas, which has suffered more than 75% losses since the war began, and boasted that the Jewish state would “face a more formidable defeat” against the much more heavily armed Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is indeed a challenge. Hamas’s militias are mostly urban terrorists and low-grade gunmen, while Hezbollah is on a whole different level. The group has more conventional military power than the Lebanese army, backed up by a massive arsenal of artillery rockets and guided missiles.
It even has Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, which could restrict the Israeli Air Force’s ability to support a ground assault into southern Lebanon. Israel would much rather not open a second front in its war — but if Hezbollah keeps bombarding its towns it might not have a choice.
Copyright 2024, RightWing.org
