Israelis on war alert, Lebanese fleeing their homes

Israel’s government declared a "special situation on the home front" on Monday evening, following the most intense day of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah since October.

The declaration significantly expands the IDF's powers to issue instructions to the Israeli public, allowing it to ban gatherings, limit studies, and issue "additional instructions required to save lives".

Hezbollah launched over 210 rockets into Israel on Monday in multiple barrages targeting Haifa and its surrounding suburbs, with many reaching the edge of central Israel and inside the West Bank.

Israel's air force struck over 800 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, killing at least 492 and wounding more than 1,600, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Tens of thousands of southern Lebanese citizens were seen fleeing their homes to find refuge elsewhere in the country after Israel warned them to stay away from known Hezbollah positions.

The IDF released evidence of Hezbollah munitions being placed in homes, as it sought to pre-empt criticism of the wide-ranging strikes. Among the weapons Israel said had been siloed in Lebanese homes before being hit by air force sorties were cruise missiles, rockets with large warheads and drones. In one case, the IDF revealed pictures showing what it said was a long-range rocket mounted on a hydraulic launcher and sitting in the attic of a Lebanese family’s home.

“We are crushing what was built by Hezbollah for 20 years,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared during a visit to the IDF Operations Directorate’s command room, according to his office.

The escalation follows the dramatic and controversial operation that infiltrated and exploded hundreds of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies. Accusations that the targeted pager attack was a war crime emerged this week.

Washington supports Israel's extensive airstrikes against Hezbollah, but is unconvinced that they will achieve their goal. The US Secretary of Defence expressed concern to Gallant that the Israeli move would lead to a state of escalation that would last for weeks or months.

The US is sending additional troops to the Middle East in response to the situation but declined to provide details.

Analysts say Israel’s strategy appears to be “escalate to de-escalate”, hoping that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his Iranian patrons will decide that the price of support for Hamas is becoming too high and will abandon their campaign of rocket attacks on Israel and, ideally, withdraw beyond the Litani River.

The greatest danger is that Nasrallah refuses to be cowed and Israel finds itself in an unwinnable ground war in Lebanon.  

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Israel announces 'special situation' across country amid Hezbollah escalation (Haaretz)

After failing to prevent escalation, the U.S. focuses on trying to prevent an Israeli invasion of Lebanon (Haaretz)

Israeli strikes kill 492 in Lebanon: Lebanese Health Ministry (Axios)

Missile in the attic: IDF releases photos of Hezbollah munitions in Lebanese homes (Times of Israel)

US deploying more troops to region as Israel-Hezbollah conflict ramps up (Times of Israel)

RELATED ANALYSIS

Israel keeps moving up the escalation ladder, hoping Nasrallah will jump off (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel)
With massive airstrikes on Hezbollah’s missiles, Netanyahu is still trying to get the terror group to hold its fire after 11 months. If it doesn’t, war seems the only option.

We hit Hezbollah, they hit back. Now Israel must push for a diplomatic way out in Lebanon (Raviv Druker, Haaretz)
Israel cannot repeat the mistake it made by dragging out the Second Lebanon War two decades ago.

Israel has gone on the offensive against Hezbollah but is in no rush for a ground op (Amos Harel, Haaretz)
Without any formal declarations, Israel and Hezbollah have in practice moved to a phase of all-out war on Monday. The IDF is stepping up the military pressure, and Nasrallah must decide whether to intensify his response.

Israel is playing a high-risk game with its new Hezbollah strategy (Nick Paton Walsh, CNN)
Over the past week Israel has clearly decided to massively amplify its attacks on the Iran-backed militant group, claiming, according to some reports, they seek to “escalate to deescalate” – to cow their adversary into a diplomatic solution.

With top aides gone, Nasrallah faces critical decision on precision missiles (Ron Ben-Yishai, Ynet)
Field commanders steering Hezbollah’s war effort, but group yet to deploy precision missiles, maybe holding back hoping to avoid IDF strikes on arsenal amid US pressure to prevent regional war with Iran.