In Southern Lebanon on Thursday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets targeted Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Al-Adisa and IDF ground troops attacked targets in the areas of Kafr Kila and Marjayoun.
The IDF also said that two launches were identified from Lebanon towards the area of the northern Israeli Bedouin village of Arab al-Aramshe, with both hitting open areas.
The Jewish state needs to prepare for “the possibility of the [security] situation deteriorating in the north,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said following a military assessment on Thursday.
“If this happens, we will exact a heavy price from Hezbollah and Lebanon, but there will be casualties here as well,” he added.
Gallant said Jerusalem is committed to bringing about the return of the approximately 80,000 Israelis who live up to nine kilometers from the border through a diplomatic solution, but “if this scenario does not happen … we will reach a situation where we need to create the security conditions that allow their return.”
On Wednesday, 20 projectiles were fired towards the Western Galilee kibbutz of Rosh Hanikra; no casualties or damage was reported. In the town of Metula in the Eastern Galilee, two rockets caused material damage.
Earlier on Wednesday, the IDF destroyed numerous terrorist targets in Southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has initiated a series of fire exchanges in recent months, as the Jewish state fights Hamas terrorists to the south. Since Oct. 7, six Israeli civilians and nine IDF soldiers have been killed in attacks near the northern border.
Since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7 and with Hezbollah and other Iranian terrorist proxies attacking Israel, the Biden administration has been attempting to stave off a “regional war” by discouraging Jerusalem from among other actions, militarily removing Hezbollah from its positions along the border, which violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
NBC News, citing senior Biden administration officials, reported on Wednesday that during last week’s visit to Israel by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon. Netanyahu reportedly agreed to this.
The Biden administration is seeking a diplomatic solution to Hezbollah, dispatching envoy Amos Hochstein to Beirut for talks. However, Jerusalem has conveyed that the window of time for a diplomatic solution is short as tens of thousands of displaced Israeli citizens have still not been able to return to their homes in the north.
The IDF in an X post on Wednesday cited the “imminent threat” at the border posed by Hezbollah’s special forces Radwan unit, composed of thousands of men whose aim is to conquer the Galilee. The video shows how the Radwan personnel are trained by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and are responsible for carrying out the constant cross-border attacks since Oct. 7.