The Israeli military said on Tuesday night that senior officers had approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon”, as fears grow that Israel and Hizbollah could slide into a full-blown conflict.
The Lebanese militant group and Israeli forces have been trading fire on an almost daily basis since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but exchanges escalated last week, with Iran-backed Hizbollah firing dozens of rockets at Israel after it killed one of the group’s commanders in an air strike.
Despite the intensifying exchanges, which have displaced tens of thousands of people and caused casualties in both Lebanon and Israel, the two sides have not yet been drawn into an all-out war, with the US leading a diplomatic push to de-escalate the situation.