Israel may start invading Lebanon

(CNN) — US administration and intelligence officials are concerned that Israel is planning a ground incursion into Lebanon that could be launched in late spring or early summer if diplomatic efforts fail to dislodge Hezbollah from Israel’s northern border. said senior administration officials and officials familiar with the intelligence reports.

While Israel has yet to make a final decision, concern in the Biden administration is so intense that the prospect of a raid has made its way into intelligence briefings for senior administration officials, according to a person who received the briefing. And it was said that an operation could take place in early summer.

“We are operating under the assumption that there will be Israeli military action in the coming months,” said a senior Biden administration official. “Not necessarily immediately in the next few weeks, but perhaps later this spring. Israeli military action is a distinct possibility.”

There have been months of daily and deadly cross-border attacks by both Israel and Hezbollah that have displaced thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents from their homes. Israel has fired artillery and launched planes and drones to attack targets, while Hezbollah has used some of its vast arsenal of rockets and missiles.

While the United States is the main mediator in ongoing talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, the Biden administration is also leading parallel talks with Israeli and Lebanese officials that, if successful, would create a one-kilometer-long buffer zone. Lebanon. U.S. officials believe that deal will likely postpone an Israeli attack.

“I think what Israel is doing is escalating the threat in the hope that there will be a negotiated agreement,” said the senior official, who has heard differing opinions within the Israeli government about the need to go to Lebanon.

“Some Israeli officials are suggesting that this is an attempt to create a threat that they can exploit. Others are talking more about the military necessity that is going to happen,” the official said.

Another senior Biden administration official said there were elements in the Israeli government and military in favor of the raid. “There’s a growing group saying, ‘Hey, let’s try it. Let’s do it,'” the senior official said.

About 80,000 Israelis have been displaced from the north since October. In a statement to CNN, the Israeli embassy in Washington wrote: “The State of Israel will not return to pre-war conditions, in which Hezbollah poses a direct and immediate military threat to its security along the border between Israel and Lebanon”.

Israel has been intensifying its air campaign in recent days, bombing deep into Lebanon. Last week’s attacks took place 43 kilometers from the capital, Beirut, the furthest from the border in Lebanese territory, as violence erupted in Israel shortly after the October 7 massacre of Hamas.

This Monday, Israel attacked the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek in the northeast of the country.

“There is concern that this will become an extended air campaign that will reach further north into populated areas of Lebanon, and that it will eventually grow into a ground component as well,” said another person familiar with US intelligence.

The US The intelligence community is “sounding the alarm,” the person added.

Israel’s top general visited the northern border on Tuesday and said Hezbollah would “pay a heavy price” for its actions since October 7.

“It is clear that we must first push the enemy back. Then create a very strong barrier,” said Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi.

Shuttle diplomacy

The White House has appointed special envoy Amos Hochstein to lead efforts to find a diplomatic solution. Hochstein usually works as a senior energy adviser and draws on his experience and relationships after brokering a maritime deal between Israel and Lebanon on gas exploration.

“If Amos successfully negotiates a standoff agreement, the likelihood of military action later this year will be greatly reduced,” a top administration official said. If Hezbollah retreats about 10 kilometers, it will eliminate some of the short-range weapons used against Israel, the official added.

Hochstein regularly travels to both countries, conducting negotiations that are complicated by the fact that the United States in Lebanon does not have a direct alliance with Hezbollah, the country’s most powerful military force and considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

In addition, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have hit the US-backed Lebanese Army so often that the administration has called on Israel to reduce them.

During a meeting in Israel earlier this month, Hochstein met with Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who said: “We are ready to resolve this crisis through a diplomatic agreement, but we are also ready for any other scenario.”

Israeli officials have acknowledged that a war with Hezbollah would be more costly and destructive to Israel than the current war with Hamas, given the size and more advanced nature of Hezbollah’s arsenal.

“Israel is willing to give diplomacy a chance and hopefully it will work,” an Israeli official told CNN. “If this issue cannot be resolved diplomatically, Israel will have to consider alternative means.”

Creating a buffer zone

There are signs of progress in talks on a separate track on a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza. It is believed that stopping the fighting in Gaza will reduce rocket fire by Hezbollah. But Israeli officials say that won’t solve the problem.

“Even if there is a temporary ceasefire in the south (with Hamas in Gaza), we will independently increase fire in the north and continue until Hezbollah’s full withdrawal and residents return to their homes,” Gallant said in a statement on Sunday. On social network X.

The first administration official argued that even a deal that simply expelled Hezbollah from the border would not be enough for Israel. A ground invasion would give Israel an opportunity to “mow the grass” and destroy Hezbollah’s physical infrastructure in the south, at least delaying a future return to the border area.

If there is no invasion, the buffer zone will be filled with forces from the Lebanese Armed Forces and United Nations Peacekeepers (UNIFIL), the official said.

“Whatever kilometers of reserves are negotiated will not keep Hezbollah out forever, but it will at least provide some security that they won’t come back immediately,” they said.

An Israeli police officer inspects the impact crater left by a rocket fired from southern Lebanon where it landed near the entrance to Ziv Hospital in the northern Israeli city on February 14, 2024. (Credit: Jala Mere/AFP via Getty Images)

Pressure on Netanyahu

Many have also argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an interest in prolonging the fighting because an end to the conflict could spell the end of his government. If peace is restored, questions about Netanyahu’s failure to secure Israel on October 7 will fill the void.

“Once a war is over, it has an expiration date,” said the first senior administration official. “So he needs to maintain the impression, Israel is still in the middle of the campaign, to maintain the story to try to stop attempts to remove him.”

Israel is eager to voice its concerns with Hezbollah by taking journalists to watch live-fire exercises in the Golan Heights near Lebanon. Israeli forces performed a combined arms exercise in which tanks plowed through mud and alongside infantrymen plowed through hills.

“I think most of the people in charge on both sides don’t want escalation and want a (diplomatic) solution that allows us to de-escalate,” said another senior administration official. “But they are not always successful.”