{"id":667687,"date":"2026-03-19T21:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/667687\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:43:14","slug":"israel-forges-ahead-on-ground-incursion-against-hezbollah-in-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/667687\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel forges ahead on ground incursion against Hezbollah in Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel is forging ahead with its incursion into Lebanon, in what it claims is a vital fight against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group. The operation, which began on Monday, is separate from the joint U.S.-Israel war on Iran<\/a>, but the dynamics of each conflict zone will inevitably intersect with each other.<\/p>\n

The Israeli deployment is expected to last several weeks and is part of a broader effort to dismantle Hezbollah\u2019s military capabilities and eradicate its fighters in the area, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces asserted to Military Times. The offensive is intended to \u201cremove threats and create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s attention remains fixed on the war in Iran but a White House official affirmed to Military Times that the U.S. supports the Israeli campaign to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state actors in Lebanon, calling it \u201ccrucial\u201d for regional stability. <\/p>\n

The U.S. also does not skimp on ensuring Israel\u2019s security. A 2025 Congressional report<\/a> noted that Washington has provided Jerusalem $174 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding to date \u2014 underscoring the deep strategic ties that sustain Israeli operations. <\/p>\n

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The question of Israel\u2019s influence on U.S. foreign policy has become even more heated since the war on Iran began. Prominent conservative commentators have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, in effect, maneuvered the U.S. into fighting an unnecessary war with Iran.<\/p>\n

The politics of the issue became even sharper on Tuesday when Trump\u2019s director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, quit in protest<\/a>. In his resignation letter, which he published on social media, Kent claimed that \u201chigh ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media\u201d had created an echo chamber to \u201cdeceive\u201d Trump into believing there was an imminent threat from Iran. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in turn, accused Kent of \u201cvirulent anti-Semitism\u201d in the resignation letter. <\/p>\n

For years, Netanyahu fulminated against Iran\u2019s nuclear program but feared any direct confrontation with Tehran would spark retaliation from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. <\/p>\n

\u201cIran established an armed and trained Hezbollah in Lebanon to serve as a deterrent and to be able to hit and hurt Israel in a major way,\u201d Paul Salem, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said in an interview with Military Times. \u201cThat was always Israel\u2019s main concern: If we were to confront Iran, Hezbollah could hit [back] really hard.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hezbollah\u2019s ideology centers on its enmity toward Israel and the West, which it casts as existential enemies. The Islamic Republic has provided Hezbollah with financing, training and advanced weaponry \u2014 propelling the group\u2019s rise, over years, to become the region\u2019s most powerful non-state actor. <\/p>\n

However, Hezbollah suffered a devastating blow to its strength in September 2024, when thousands of pagers used by the group\u2019s members detonated<\/a>, having been meddled with by Israel. Before and since then, Hezbollah has been weakened by Israeli assaults.<\/p>\n

A ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel largely held from November 2024 until the U.S.-Israeli operation on Feb. 28 that killed Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>. The assassination triggered Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel on March 2, prompting retaliatory strikes from Israel. <\/p>\n

The past two weeks of fighting in Lebanon have left nearly 1,000 dead and forced more than 1 million people \u2014 roughly a quarter of the country\u2019s population \u2014 to flee their homes. Israel\u2019s leaders have signaled the next phase of the conflict could resemble its operations in the Gaza Strip, where much of the enclave has since been leveled by the IDF. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think they can do that,\u201d Salem, of the Middle East Institute, said. \u201cThey will be challenged by Hezbollah, so it won\u2019t be calm and uncontested, but they have the predominant power until or unless there is possibly a ceasefire at some point.\u201d <\/p>\n

Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, in a joint statement<\/a>, warned that a significant Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon would have \u201cdevastating humanitarian consequences and could lead to a protracted conflict.\u201d <\/p>\n

A State Department spokesperson told Military Times on Thursday that Ambassador Michel Issa is spearheading all diplomacy with Lebanon. The spokesperson reaffirmed the U.S. \u201cfully supports\u201d Israel\u2019s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, while also emphasizing that Washington backs the Lebanese government\u2019s efforts to reassert sovereignty over the entire country. <\/p>\n

Tanya Noury is a reporter for Military Times and Defense News, with coverage focusing on the White House and Pentagon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel is forging ahead with its incursion into Lebanon, in what it claims is a vital fight against…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":667688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[19100,19119,49714,19102,19114,4783,99,13192,3097,50,7332],"class_list":["post-667687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-circulated-defense-news","tag-circulated-military-times","tag-defense-department","tag-defense-news","tag-dn-dnr","tag-hezbollah","tag-israel","tag-lebanon","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-pentagon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116258026927910478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}