Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, in response to a journalist’s question — where is the red line after which a full-fledged war with Hizbullah will begin, answered the following: “If you hear that we are attacking Beirut, it means that they have crossed it”. It makes sense.
In the north, there’s basically a full-fledged war going on. Every day — they attack us, we strike them. Hizbullah has already claimed more than 70 of its terorists killed, recently our planes hit the Saydeh area, which is already 40 kilometers from the border, much farther from the 1701 resolution line.
70 killed terrorists sounds good, there are probably many more, Hizbullah does not count the losses of other terrorist units (such as Imam Hussein’s Brigade, Lebanese Hamas, etc.). However!
Our north is depopulated, people refuse to return to the villages and towns near the border, the town of Kiryat Shmonah is almost completely evacuated. No one in his right mind would think of returning to Metula after October 7, if the terrorists’ positions are 300 meters from your home.
And such a “war” Hizbullah can wage for a very long time, literally years — even if we kill 100 terrorists a month. Even 100 a week. They don’t care, they’re programmed for it, they’ve been trained for it, they’re not needed for anything else in this life — to die heroically. We can’t do it for years. For a month, two months, three months at most — after that people have to set up their lives in a new place or go back to the old one — see the positions of the terrorists.
We will have to confront the issue of Hizbullah one way or another, because no one will ever again believe the phrase “the deterrence factor has been restored.”