TEL AVIV (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel focused its recent strikes in Gaza and Lebanon on Hamas targets in an effort to avoid a wider conflict with Hezbollah, two Zionist war officials have told U.S. digital news website Axios.
In discussing their response to a barrage of rockets launched from Lebanon on Thursday, Zionist ministers concluded that Israel didn’t have any interest in getting dragged into a war in Lebanon that would risk turning into a regional conflict, the officials said.
The domestic unrest in Occupied Palestine over the regime’s judicial overhaul plan destabilized the entity’s economy, military and international standing.
Dozens of rockets were fired toward Occupied Palestine from Lebanon Thursday afternoon in the most serious escalation between the two sides since the 2006 war.
The rocket fire came after a violent raid by Israeli forces in Al-Quds’ Haram al-Sharif compound late Tuesday after Muslim worshippers had barricaded themselves in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Blaming Hamas for rocket fire from Lebanon, Israel attacked Gaza. Palestinian resistance fightes in Gaza then launched dozens of rockets overnight.
The occupying regime of Israel also launched rare strikes against what it called Hamas targets in southern Lebanon.
Hamas did not claim the rocket fire from Lebanon but said it holds the Zionist regime “fully responsible for the grave escalation and the flagrant aggression against the Gaza Strip and for the consequences that will bring onto the region.”
In the consultation held by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war minister Yoav Gallant ahead of a security cabinet meeting Thursday, the military and Mossad presented different assessments on what Hezbollah’s response would be to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, a war official said.
Mossad chief David Barnea argued Hezbollah would likely respond to any Israeli airstrike and therefore the Zionist regime should strike the organization in addition to Hamas and Lebanese targets, according to the official.
But military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said the Israeli interest was to keep Hezbollah out of the equation and, to do that, the occupying regime’s response should stay focused on Hamas, the official said.
Halevi’s position ultimately prevailed as the recommendation to take at the security cabinet meeting, the official added.
During the Israeli security cabinet meeting later Thursday, one of the main issues discussed was what the scope of the regime’s response should be in Lebanon, Zionist officials said.
A military official said that the security chiefs told the ministers that a wider response against Hezbollah would likely result in the organization launching precision missiles toward Zionist cities, which could escalate into a war.
All the ministers voted in favor of the military’s recommendation to focus the response against Hamas, two defense officials said.
A key goal of the response was to avoid a violent clash with Hezbollah in Lebanon and to keep Hamas fronts in both places from uniting, according to two Israeli officials. “This goal has been achieved so far,” one of the officials told Axios.
Lebanese commentator Ibrahim al-Amin, who is close to Hezbollah’s leadership, wrote this morning in Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is affiliated with the organization, that if Israel assassinates Hamas leaders in Lebanon or threatens the security of the people in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah would react.
But he stressed that “local attacks” by the Zionist regime in Lebanon are meaningless and will not necessarily prompt a Hezbollah response.