New Delhi: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has alerted his G7 counterparts that Iran and Hezbollah may launch an attack on Israel as early as Monday, Axios reported. However, in Israel, the Times of Israel indicated that the government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, might authorize a preemptive strike on Iran to thwart an assault on Israeli territory. Reports suggest that Netanyahu convened a meeting with top officials, including Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, to discuss this strategy.
Hezbollah, Iran’s first proxy in the Middle East since its inception in the early 1980s with Iranian support, is funded and armed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The group, sharing Tehran’s core ideology, recruits primarily from Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim population. On Saturday, Iran announced that Hezbollah would intensify its attacks deeper into Israeli territory, potentially targeting more than military installations. This follows Israel’s recent killing of senior Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr on July 30, during an airstrike on a densely populated residential area in south Beirut, which also resulted in five civilian deaths.
Adding to the complexity, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, a move attributed to Israel though not confirmed by Israeli authorities.
The situation has dramatically escalated, with cross-border skirmishes threatening to ignite a full-scale conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The two sides last engaged in a significant war in the summer of 2006, during which Israel bombed Lebanon’s only passenger airport in Beirut.
Given the heightened tensions, several embassies, including India’s, have advised their citizens to leave Lebanon while commercial flights are still operational. Hezbollah continues near-daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces, targeting military positions since its ally Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, initiating the ongoing war in Gaza.
