HAMAS SEEKS SUPPORT AS PRESSURE MOUNTS FOR DEAL

▶ Pause in fighting in Gaza may lead Israel to refocus on Hezbollah in Lebanon, officials warn

Reports of progress towards a truce in Gaza have stoked fears that Israel may turn its attention to southern Lebanon, with officials warning that cross-border clashes with Hezbollah are at risk of escalating into an all-out war.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said his group was showing “flexibility” in talks with Israel amid pressure from US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators to secure a pause in fighting in Gaza before the start of Ramadan.

“The flexibility we show in negotiations out of concern for the blood of our people and to put an end to their great pain and enormous sacrifices in the brutal war of genocide against them, is paralleled by a willingness to defend our people,” Mr Haniyeh said yesterday.

He urged members of the “resistance axis” that supports Gaza to increase their involvement in the conflict.

Mr Haniyeh called for money and weapons to be sent to Gaza and the occupied West Bank “before it is too late”.

Mediators have intensified efforts to reach a truce deal as Israel prepares for a ground incursion into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than one million Palestinians have sought refuge. But while observers have welcomed the moves towards a halt in the fighting, sources told The National that Israel planned for a war on its northern border.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging cross-border fire since October 8.

“Most of the Israelis who left their homes in the north aren’t willing to go back unless the threat of Hezbollah is removed,” a security official said. “This is a source of big pressure on the Israeli military and government. It could mean another big war.”

Hezbollah has a far larger arsenal than Hamas, with up to 150,000 rockets.

Recent Israeli air strikes have struck deeper into Lebanon. This week, Israel struck targets near Baalbek, about 75km from the border.

Israel has planned for a war in southern Lebanon to remove Hezbollah from the border.

The Iran-backed militia is prepared to face “all scenarios”, including a ground incursion, security sources told The National.

Signs that a ceasefire might be imminent in Gaza have raised fears that Israel will turn its attention to southern Lebanon, where it has been engaged in cross-border fire with the heavily armed group since October 8.

The clashes have forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to leave their homes.

“Most of the Israelis who left their homes in the north aren’t willing to go back unless the threat of Hezbollah is removed,” a security official said.

“This is a source of big pressure on the Israeli military and government. It could mean another big war.”

Military sources said Israel “contemplated and planned” for a war in southern Lebanon to remove Hezbollah from the border region.

The war in Gaza is perceived as an existential conflict by Israel, with Hezbollah forces considered a major part of that.

Israeli forces will have to go into southern Lebanon in the “long run”, sources said.

Israel aims to force Hezbollah about 10km to 15km from the border to put its anti-tank guided missiles and much of its rocket arsenal out of range of the 60,000 Israelis who have fled the north.

Many of Hezbollah’s rockets have a range of 10km to 40km.

Sources said that if Hezbollah withdrew north of the Litani River, there would be no need for the conflict to expand.

On Monday, in a move showing its willingness to engage in brinkmanship in the absence of a diplomatic solution, Israel stuck a site near the Lebanese city of Baalbek.

The strike was the deepest Israeli attack on Lebanon since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The Israeli army said the strike was in response to Hezbollah’s shooting down of a Hermes 450 drone over southern Lebanon, the second time the group announced it had shot down an Israeli drone since the start of the latest border clashes.

Experts say the intensity of strikes, which have spread deeper into Lebanese territory in recent weeks, is an attempt by Israel to increase pressure on Hezbollah – goading the group to react in such a way that could be used as a pretext by Israel to launch a full war on Lebanon. On Sunday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant suggested Israel planned to increase attacks on Hezbollah in the event of a ceasefire in Gaza.

But in facing the militia, Israel would be fighting a far more potent threat than what its troops have faced in the Palestinian enclave, where more than 29,900 Palestinians have been killed according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7. Before the war in Gaza, armed groups in the enclave were thought to have about 30,000 rockets, the majority of which were unguided.

Hezbollah is now thought to possess between 100,000 and 150,000 rockets and guided missiles, some of which are capable of striking targets accurately deep within Israel.

“Israeli threats to prepare military plans to attack Lebanon are not new … and there are thousands of proven Israeli violations of Lebanon’s borders, waters and skies,” a source close to Hezbollah said.

“The resistance in Lebanon will act, as it did in the past, according to the principle of defending Lebanon and working to liberate its occupied territories.” Cross-border violence has killed 276 people on the Lebanese side. The majority are Hezbollah fighters, but 44 civilians have also been killed, AFP reported.

The Israeli army said 10 soldiers and six civilians had been killed in the violence.

In the 2006 war, about 1,200 Lebanese died and 4,400 were wounded, mostly civilians. Israel recorded 158 deaths, most of them soldiers.

Towards the end of the war, Israeli forces found an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers in border areas in southern Lebanon, some only metres from the Israeli front, such as tunnels near Naqoura.

The tunnels reportedly included firing positions, operations centres, connecting tunnels, medical compounds, weapon and ammunition stockpiles, ventilation and air conditioning, bathrooms with hot and cold running water and dormitories, all with a roof built using slabs of reinforced concrete about a metre thick.

For those living under the threat of Hezbollah rocket fire in northern Israel, the only enduring solution is to put “boots on the ground” in southern Lebanon, former Israeli army officer Ilan Lavi told The National.

In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon under the pretence of stopping Palestinian raids across its border. Three years later, Israel withdrew to the Litani River and established what it called a security zone.

The Israeli occupation of the southern region continued until 2000. The fear of infiltration by the Lebanese militia Radwan Force has grown since the October 7 attack, with Israeli villages preparing their militias in defence.

On the Lebanese side, Hezbollah, which has repeatedly said it is not afraid of a large-scale war, has been preparing scenarios including a ground incursion by the Israeli army, Lebanese security officials said.

“Everything is being prepared in the south for war,” one of the security officials said.

Israel aims to force the militia about 10km to 15km from the border to put much of its rocket arsenal out of range