Israel Expands War Aims to Include Returning Displaced Citizens to the North as Prospect of Hezbollah War Looms

Israel’s security cabinet has expanded its war goals to include returning displaced Israelis from the north back to their homes after they were forced to flee amid unrelenting fire from the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The decision, which was made in a late-night meeting on Monday that extended into the early hours of Tuesday morning, was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Israel will continue to act to implement this goal,” Netanyahu said.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — in which the Palestinian terrorist group murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages — the Jewish state’s war aims have been to return the hostages, destroy Hamas, and ensure Gaza cannot be used as a launching pad to attack Israel in the future.

On Oct. 8, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s war on Israel, pummeling northern Israeli communities almost daily with barrages of drones, rockets, and missiles from southern Lebanon, where it wields significant political and military influence. One such attack killed 12 children in the small Druze town of Majdal Shams.

About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north during that time due to the unrelenting attacks. Most of them have spent the past 11 months living in hotels in other areas of the country.

Israeli leaders have said they seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon but are prepared to use large-scale military force if needed to ensure all displaced citizens can safely return to their homes. Efforts to make it safe for them to return have so far been unsuccessful, indicating a larger military conflict could be on the horizon.

“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to tie itself to Hamas, and refuses to end the conflict,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday in a meeting with White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein, according to a statement from his office. “Therefore, the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action.”

Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the US has warned both sides to refrain from larger military action.

Hochstein, who was visiting Israel on Monday, told Netanyahu and Gallant in meetings that the US does not believe that a full confrontation with Lebanon will serve Israel’s interests or return the residents of the north to their homes, according to Israeli media reports. The US envoy also reportedly added that the risk of a regional war was real and that the diplomatic resolution to ultimately end it would be similar to the ones being discussed now anyway.

However, tensions do not seem likely to lower in the near future.

On Tuesday, thousands of members of Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were seriously injured when the pagers they use to communicate exploded.

A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the Iran-backed group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.

Up to 2,750 people were injured in Lebanon due to exploding pagers, and at least eight people were killed, according to Lebanon’s minister of health.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosions and vowed revenge, although the Jewish state has so far neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

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