Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has threatened an “extremely powerful” response to attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon, which have escalated in recent days.
A few hours after Netanyahu spoke, drones fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon struck the northern Israeli town of Hurfeish, in the Upper Galilee region, which has a largely Druze population, injuring 11 Israelis, one critically. There were several explosions and reports that air raid alarms had not been activated.
Earlier this week Hezbollah launched a wave of attacks that set off substantial fires, which were fanned by dry and powerful winds. Television footage from the area of Kiryat Shmona showed firestorms engulfing nearby forests. Emergency services struggled for two days to bring the fires under control.
The dramatic and widely viewed images underscored the increasingly vocal complaints from community leaders in the area bordering Lebanon, largely evacuated at the beginning of the war with Gaza, that they have been abandoned with little prospect of return. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes on both sides of the border since October.
“Anyone who thinks that they can harm us and we will sit on our hands is sorely mistaken,” Netanyahu said during a visit on Wednesday to Kiryat Shmona, which has been largely empty since Hezbollah began almost daily firing on Israel on 8 October. “We are prepared for a very strong action in the north. In one way or another we will restore security to the north.”
Netanyahu was criticised for failing to meet the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, who has accused the government of abandoning northern communities.
On Tuesday the Israeli war cabinet had discussed the situation on the Lebanese border amid a flurry of visits by senior officials to the area. The chief of the Israel Defense Forces, Herzi Halevi, said on a visit to the north on Tuesday: “We’re approaching the point at which we’ll have to make a decision. The IDF is ready for an offensive.”
The EU’s diplomatic service issued a statement on Tuesday saying it was increasingly concerned about “the ever-growing destruction and the forced displacement of civilians on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border”.
Calling on all sides to exercise restraint, it added: “Nobody stands to win from a broader regional conflict.”
While Hezbollah has indicated it is not seeking all-out war with Israel, the current position on both sides of the border is becoming untenable.
Meanwhile, the Israeli cabinet has increased the cap on the number of army reservists it can call up by an additional 50,000 during the summer to about 350,000, close to the number called up at the beginning of the war in Gaza.
The IDF indicated that the cap on reservists had been raised because of the continuing operations in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, which have involved more additional personnel than planned.
Amid concerns about the scope of the border conflict, which has gradually intensified over the past eight months, on Monday Hezbollah announced it had launched a squadron of drones towards the headquarters of the Israeli military’s formation in the Galilee region.
While Hezbollah has previously launched drones at Israel during the hostilities that began in October, it marked the first time the Iran-backed group had announced firing a squadron of them.
International concern at the potential for more violence with Hezbollah was underlined in a report by Human Rights Watch on Wednesday, which accused Israel of using white phosphorus incendiary shells on homes in at least five towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
The report said that while there was no evidence of burn injuries owing to white phosphorus in Lebanon, researchers had “heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage”.
The Israeli military said it followed international law regarding munitions and the use of white phosphorus, and used the chemical only as a smokescreen, not to target civilians.
“Israel Defense Forces procedures require that such shells are not used in densely populated areas, subject to certain exceptions,” the IDF said.
