Experts and leaders in the Middle East are growing increasingly concerned about a second war breaking out in Israel along the Lebanese border following a series of deadly clashes between the terrorist group Hezbollah and Israel’s military.
On Sunday, a Hezbollah missile hit a home in Yuval, Israel, killing a woman in her 70s and her 40-something son. On Tuesday, Israel hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon share a 50-mile border to Israel’s north. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, operates out of Lebanon.
“We’re more prepared for this than ever before, even for tonight, if needed, and we’ll continue and strengthen our preparations and our readiness moving forward,” Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, commanding officer of Israel's Northern Command, said, according to CBN.
More than 115,000 Israelis have evacuated towns and cities along the northern border with Lebanon.
“We are much closer to the border than most of the [towns near] the Gaza Strip,” Daniella Porat Penso, a resident near the northern border said, according to CBN. “It's scary, I must say. And we need to be sure that we're safe in order to come and live here again in our homes.”
Israel has been in a war with the Gaza-based Hamas since Oct. 7, when terrorists invaded the country and killed more than 1,200 while taking 200-plus hostage. Gaza is in the southwest corner of Israel.
Former IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus told CBN News that the situation is growing more tense and time is running out for diplomacy.
“The time really is now for any such deal to come into effect,” Conricus said. “What Israel, I think, needs in order for Israeli civilians to go home to their homes is for a seven or ten-kilometer buffer zone to be created inside Lebanon, where there is simply no access for the worst Hezbollah terrorists to get close to the border.”
Hezbollah, he said, is more capable than Hamas.
“We're talking about 130,000 rockets,” he said. “We're talking about bigger payloads and we're talking about much bigger range, including high-quality weapons that can strike specific locations in Israel, which Hamas does not possess, and many other weapons that Hezbollah has been provided by the Iranians.”
Image credit: ©Getty Images/Oleksii Liskonih
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
