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Reports from the past couple of days left some ambiguity over Israel’s next steps after eliminating Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah’s leadership. Some thought that Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet might wait to see what impact that had on enemy recalculations. Instead, the IDF has followed up on their clear military advantage by conducting ground operations in Lebanon, seeking to destroy Hezbollah capabilities and force them to flee.
How do we know this? Because the Biden-Harris administration has a big mouth, that’s how, although it wouldn’t have been a secret for long anyway:
IDF soldiers entered southern Lebanon as part of a ground assault on Monday night as the conflict with Hezbollah continues to escalate, AFP reported.
Shortly thereafter, Arabic media such as Al-Jazeera and MTV Lebanon claimed that IDF tanks had entered multiple villages in southern Lebanon.
“This is what they have informed us that they are currently conducting, which are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border”, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said to the press on Monday, according to AFP.
That angered Israeli cabinet ministers, who decided to loop in their US counterparts after complaints about being left in the dark on the Nasrallah operation:
Hebrew media reports say that the security cabinet has approved the next phase of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, presumably the much-touted ground offensive.
The Ynet news site reports that during the discussion, some ministers decried leaks about the operation from American officials after they were updated by Israel.
That leak didn’t seem accidental, either. During the consultation between the two governments, Axios reports, Joe Biden and his team pushed back on Israeli plans. Supposedly, the invasion would lend support to Hezbollah:
The Biden Administration understands the strategic purpose of the ground operation and the need to make sure Hezbollah cannot maintain the capacity to attack Israeli communities from the immediate opposite side of the border, the sources said.
But White House officials told their Israeli counterparts they’re concerned that — as in previous wars in Lebanon — what starts as a time-limited and geographically limited operation slides into something larger and longer-term, the source said.
The Biden administration has also privately warned that an invasion will increase support for Hezbollah among ordinary Lebanese people, U.S. officials say.
