In Israel’s northern neighbor, worries grow that Netanyahu won’t stop with Gaza
An artillery unit moves near the Israeli northern border with Lebanon on November 8, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Amir Levy | Getty Images

An Israeli army soldier looks through the scope of a rifle while lying prone at a position in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on November 1, 2023 amid increasing cross-border tensions between Hezbollah and Israel as fighting continues in the south with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Jalaa Marey | AFP | Getty Images

Netanyahu faces pressure from all sides, squeezed between a public furious over his handling of the crisis and fraud charges that could see him thrown in jail if he's pushed out of office. "Netanyahu, on a personal level, he needs to do something. If this war stops tomorrow, he could be held accountable," said Abbas Ibrahim, a hostage negotiator who directed Lebanon's intelligence agency for more than a decade until March. "If he defeats Hamas and Hezbollah, he could be a hero at the end of this year — to protect himself, not his people." Netanyahu has an incentive to possibly prolong the Israeli military offensive in Gaza to try to safeguard his political survival, according to one person familiar with U.S. intelligence on Israel. But there are no indications at the moment that he or his government are currently considering launching a major campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, this person said. Almost a year before the latest round of fighting, Netanyahu's proposed judicial overhaul bill, which many Israelis saw as an effort to kneecap the country's legal system, had sparked unprecedented protests and set the country against itself. Many of Netanyahu's opponents had openly suggested that his proposals were themselves a bid to limit the power of a legal system that had charged him with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The prime minister's unpopularity paints him into a corner. If Netanyahu hopes to show his constituents that Israel is winning in Gaza, one concern in Washington and the Middle East is that the definition of an Israeli "win" in the Palestinian enclave remains nebulous: U.S. and Western officials say Israel does not have a coherent political plan once its military campaign is completed. Washington has also struggled to outline the future of Gaza. Israel's stated goal of ousting Hamas could leave a perilous power vacuum that few Palestinian politicians or groups could hope to fill. But even if regional worries are focused on Netanyahu, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed proxy groups have hardly been shying away from a fight. Since the day after Hamas' terrorist attacks, Hezbollah has been regularly firing rockets and other projectiles into northern Israel, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate. Israeli retaliatory fire has killed 100 Hezbollah fighters, at least 18 Lebanese civilians and forced more than 30,000 Lebanese people from their homes. Yet, the fighting over Israel's border with Lebanon has remained relatively constrained, hewing to unspoken rules of engagement that emerged from Israel's monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006. Other Iranian proxies throughout the region, which constitute the loosely connected "axis of resistance" inimical to Israel, the West and monied Sunni Muslim Arab Gulf kingdoms, have also been taking the offensive. The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq has fired dozens of projectiles at American bases, Iran-sponsored fighting groups in Syria have fired at American military installations, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen have been targeting ships in the Red Sea.

Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Alma al-Shaab on November 20, 2023, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. - | Afp | Getty Images