Sending new divisions to join an expanded ground offensive, soldiers raising a flag outside a border village, and an unequivocal warning to Lebanese civilians: Israel is sending increasingly contradictory signals. The objectives of the military campaign were limited.
Concerns about the country's plans Wednesday after the Israeli Prime Minister was assembled Benjamin Netanyahu The people of Lebanon are advised to rise up against any Hezbollah Or they will fall into destruction like the Gaza Strip.
For many observers, it was a choice between civil war or the same fate as the Palestinians in the besieged and bombed enclaves.
“You have the chance to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a protracted war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we are seeing in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in a video address in English on Tuesday. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
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His comments came as Israel expands A fourth division of troops has been mobilized in the fight against Hezbollah, its offensive in southwestern Lebanon, as the military is ordered to go beyond the UN-declared buffer zone.
It has already called into question Israel's declared intentions in neighboring territory.
Israel says it is a “limited, local, targeted operation against Hezbollah that is essential to ensuring the safe return and safety of thousands of people displaced from their homes in northern Israel after the Iran-backed Hamas militant and political group , having started shooting across the border a year ago, in solidarity with Hamas. And the Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli officials have suggested this would involve Hezbollah's withdrawal north of the Litani River, as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which set the terms for a ceasefire in the 2006 war but was not fully implemented.
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Fawaz Gurges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, told NBC News he believes many are missing the broader picture of “the underlying thinking and machinations of Netanyahu and his war cabinet.”
Netanyahu appeared to be “trying to incite the Lebanese people against Hezbollah” using rhetoric that would “pour gasoline on the fire of the protests,” Gerges said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Hezbollah is not just a militant group with thousands of fighters and a powerful arsenal, it is a political organization that encompasses all the institutions of a deeply divided country. Rising up against this would mean armed struggle.
“It’s really a recipe for civil war and civil war,” Gerges said.
Netanyahu's warning “was a direct threat,” Yossi Meckelberg, senior adviser for Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, said in a phone interview Wednesday morning.
Referring to the rising death toll in Gaza, where more than 42,000 people have already been killed, according to the local health ministry, Meckelberg said Netanyahu indicated that thousands more could be killed in Lebanon. More than 2,000 people were killed and more than 1.2 million were displaced in the country last year, according to Lebanese officials.
Meckelberg said Netanyahu's comments “should really make the international community want to step in and say, 'This is totally unacceptable.'”
He said, look at the photos of Gaza, photos coming out of Gaza.
Images also began to reveal the devastation in Lebanon – from nighttime airstrikes in Beirut to air and ground attacks in the south. And on Wednesday, an NBC News Geolocation video sparked outrage: Israeli soldiers raising the country's flag on the outskirts of a border village.
Lebanese people who spoke to NBC News on Wednesday embraced Netanyahu's warning, with some mocking images of Israeli soldiers planting a flag in the southern village of Marun al-Ras.
“I laughed when I heard Netanyahu’s threats,” said Hisham Karameh, a salesman at a local clothing store. “It’s not the first time.”
“Israel has invaded Lebanon many times,” said Karameh, 28. Israel's invasion of Lebanon during the 1982 civil war resulted in nearly two decades of labor in the country's South.
“They have already destroyed the south and Dahiyah,” he said, referring to the Beirut suburbs and Hezbollah strongholds that have been bombed for weeks. “It is too late to send more threats. We trust him on that.”
Karameh also dismissed the video on social media showing Israeli forces planting a flag in southern Lebanon as “a joke.”
“They crossed the border a few meters, raised the flag, took a photo and left,” he said. “Please don’t insult our intelligence.”
The State Department said Israeli troops raising a flag in southern Lebanon was “clearly inappropriate.”
“We hope they stick to what they said, which is that these are limited intrusions, not intended to occupy the area,” spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday night.
