Netanyahu says Israel is ‘prepared for very intense action’ against Hezbollah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “restore security” in the northern part of the country that is feeling the effects of the growing conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The prime minister made those remarks during a Wednesday visit to Kiryat Shmona, a northern city near the Lebanese border, after large fires erupted in the area following rocket fire from Hezbollah earlier this week. 

“We said, at the start of the war, that we would restore security in both the south and the north – and this is what we are doing,” Netanyahu said during his trip, according to his office. “Today I am on the northern border with our heroic fighters and commanders, as well as with our firefighters. Yesterday the ground burned here and I am pleased that you have extinguished it, but ground also burned in Lebanon.”

The flames consumed some 1,000 acres of the northern region, chief of the Tiberias fire station Boris Eisenberg said, according to CNN.

The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been fought in parallel to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. The United States, the United Nations, and several other countries have desperately sought since the beginning of that war following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack to prevent it from expanding to a regional conflict.

“Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake,” Netanyahu added. “We are prepared for very intense action in the north. One way or another, we will restore security to the north.”

The Israelis are “approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision,” Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi said.

Tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians who live near the shared border have been forced to evacuate their homes for several months.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday the situation at the border “continues to be extremely dangerous,” and he said the U.S. is “trying to keep it from moving from shelling across the border and airstrikes across the border to a full-fledged conflagration.”

Miller did note that the U.S. believes that an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal would likely lead to a decrease in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have ties to Iran, which carried out an unprecedented aerial attack against Israel in April.

“I will say it is our assessment that the acceptance of a ceasefire by Hamas and the beginning of a calm would help us reach calm in northern Israel and southern Lebanon and would be the thing that would help us reach both temporary calm and potentially a long-term agreement to resolve the situation,” he said on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden unveiled the details of the latest ceasefire proposal on the table last Friday. It’s an Israeli proposal that Hamas has not responded to yet, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday evening. Hamas received the proposal from the Qatari mediators last Thursday.

“It is still a live proposal,” Sullivan said on NBC’s Today on Wednesday. “It’s still an Israeli proposal. … The Israeli government has reconfirmed repeatedly, as recently as today, that that proposal is still on the table, and now it’s up to Hamas to accept it, and the whole world should call on Hamas to accept it.”

If the proposal is agreed upon, the first phase would last for a six-week ceasefire and would include the return of women, children, and other vulnerable hostages Hamas is holding; the release of “hundreds” of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel; withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas of Gaza; and the surging of humanitarian aid into the strip.

The G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S. — came out with a joint statement on Monday saying the leaders “fully endorse and will stand behind the comprehensive deal outlined by President Biden.”

During that first phase, the negotiators would continue to debate the specificities of the second phase, though it will include the release of the remaining Israeli male hostages and a departure of Israeli forces from Gaza, Biden said.

“We do believe that if we can get calm in Gaza, that it dramatically increases our chance,” Miller added. “It unlocks the real possibility of calming the situation in the north, which does not need to be at the level it is today. It wasn’t at this level before October 7th.”

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CIA Director William Burns leads the U.S. mediating delegation and he’s on his way to Qatar where he will meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed about Hamas’s reception to his proposal.

“Burns will be quite interested in hearing firsthand, in person, what the nature of those discussions was and where things go from here,” Sullivan said.