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Israel must occupy southern Lebanon or life in North ‘unsustainable’ – Likud MK
The IDF must occupy southern Lebanon to establish a “security corridor” against Hezbollah, Likud MK Ariel Kallner demanded in an interview with Maariv on Sunday.
The coalition lawmaker called on the government, led by his faction leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to address tensions along the northern border by conquering Lebanese lands, from the border to as far north as the Litani River.
“Our reality can no longer continue as is,” Kellner told Maariv. “The sole, unavoidable conclusion is that the current border in the North is unsustainable.”
Kellner further claimed that today’s border between Israel and Lebanon is curbing the government’s ability to “provide security for residents of northern Israel.”Kellner: Life along Israel’s northern border can no longer be supported
When asked about the steps Israel’s military should take to destroy the threat Hezbollah poses on the North, Kellner argued that Israel has only two options: “We either create a ‘security zone’ by controlling the Litani River, or life in northern Israel can no longer be supported.
“That is our equation; there is no other way around it,” he added.
Kellner spoke to Maariv while visiting the North as part of a delegation of lawmakers from the Knesset’s Eretz Yisrael Lobby, which advocates for expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Gallant ‘not the same minister who called to bomb Lebanon’
During his visit, Kellner also attacked Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, calling on him to resign.
As per the Likud lawmaker, Gallant is “no longer the defense minister who spoke on bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age” and must be replaced.
However, Kellner stressed his support for Netanyahu, arguing that the prime minister “continues to seek out victory” amid international pressure.
Right now is the closest Israel has been to a full war with Hezbollah since October 7.
This is true even in comparison to the period between July 30 and August 25, probably the second most dangerous period between the sides.
How do we know that the coming days, weeks, and months or two before the coming winter are so potentially explosive?
It is not just the statement that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued on Monday about his talk with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in which he said that the possibility for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in the North is running out.It is not just the rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to replace Gallant with Gideon Saar as defense minister in order to have greater support for a major operation against Hezbollah.
It is not even just that Netanyahu’s main political opposition, Benny Gantz, continues to pound the prime minister as being too scared to risk a major battle in the North, which has left the 60,000 evacuated northern residents abandoned for nearly a year.
Confidence for major Hezbollah operation
These are the open and obvious signs – and frankly, much of Israel’s political and military class has been threatening to send Hezbollah back to the Stone Age since late early spring 2024.
It is also that the Jerusalem Post has received indications behind the scenes at both the political and military levels from sources who before were pouring cold water on the public statements, who are now signaling that the public statements are serious.
The reasons they give show how realities have changed a lot throughout the war.
For most of the war, the main reason not to get into a big fight with Hezbollah was to avoid distractions that might handicap the IDf from taking apart all 24 of Hamas’s battalions in Gaza.
As of August 21, Gallant declared Hamas’s last battalion in Rafah defeated.
Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that a big war with Hezbollah was not likely going to really happen until now was that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from the expected Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day in the event of such a war.
That seems to have changed as of August 25.
On August 25, Hezbollah planned to launch several hundred and maybe up to 1,000 rockets on Israel, including on critical Israeli intelligence headquarters bases just North of Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu and the war cabinet instructed the IDF not to launch a full preemptive war on Hezbollah because, among other reasons, he was still worried about the impact on the Israeli home front.
However, something changed radically as a result of the events of August 25.
Since October 7, Netanyahu has doubted the IDF in areas where the objective risk was higher, even if the military supposedly would have the upper hand.
Sources have indicated that behind closed doors he was initially hesitant for each of the three invasions of Gaza; northern Gaza in late October, Khan Yunis in December, and Rafah in May.
Yet on August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house.
Despite IDF’s substantive victories over Hamas and small tactical victories against Hezbollah, this was the first time that the IDF won a major and complex strategic victory over Hezbollah during this war.
It blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones Hezbollah intended to attack Israel with before these threats could even be launched.
Hezbollah neither killed nor damaged anyone or anything of significance, while the IDF destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets.
Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence that he can afford a major operation against Hezbollah with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.
What if – instead of 5,000 to 10,000 dead Israelis from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets over several weeks – he could hit Hezbollah harder than it’s ever been hit before – and destroy so many of its rocket launchers on the ground, that Israeli casualties might be not just smaller, but exponentially smaller?
Another factor was until now there was a good chance that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire and that such a deal would lead Hezbollah to unilaterally stop attacking Israel, just as it did during the November 23-30 ceasefire with Hamas.
While this is not impossible, the chances of a ceasefire with Hamas now are lower than they have been in several months after both sides have dug in on various issues after having seemed to have navigated around 90% of the obstacles.
All along, the only other option that has been discussed if diplomacy failed was a major Israeli operation.
And Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah is still furious about the killing of his military chief Fuad Shukr by the IDF on July 30, so no one views him as being more flexible now than in other periods.
Finally, the winter comes into play.
Sources have told the Post that if more than 4-6 weeks pass without an operation, it may be impossible or much harder to carry out such an operation until Spring 2025.
That would mean condemning the northern residents to another 6 months outside of their homes, something becoming increasingly untenable domestically in Israel.
Pressed that the IDF managed a successful invasion of Khan Yunis and the finishing off of Hamas in Shejaia in northern Gaza in the middle of winter 2023-2024, sources responded that the winter in mountainous Lebanon is far more fierce and difficult to manage than in the deserts of Gaza.
None of this means that a new broader war with Hezbollah is certain.
It would still be a massively risky proposition for Israel, Hezbollah, and also for the sides’ sponsors: the US as well as Iran.
The US could be drawn into a regional war or at least be seen as having failed to prevent a larger war after a year of diplomacy, something that could impact the current US presidential election.
Iran could lose Hezbollah as its major potential threat to hold over Israel should the Jewish state dare to think of attacking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. Hezbollah would undoubtedly remain the main player in Lebanon but might lose many of its most feared capabilities.
But this is clearly the riskiest moment in the North since October 7.
Time might have been on Israel’s side for significant portions of the current war, but it no longer is and likely has not been since April-May.
Yemen’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Sunday made this clearer than ever.
Too much of the conversation about how long the war should go revolves around whether more military pressure can crack Hamas and get the Israeli hostages back versus whether a deal must be cut now, even if Hamas remains in power, so as to get the hostages back as time runs out for them.
Too little of the conversation takes into account how much more vulnerable Israel is becoming to attack on new fronts. Regarding these new fronts, Israel might never have taken direct hits or might have avoided taking direct hits for years or decades more if not for the length of this war, gradually exposing additional asymmetric holes in Israel’s military power.In order of current severity, Israel is facing seven fronts of attack: Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, and Iraq.
That’s right: Gaza is now probably only the fifth most dangerous front militarily, even though Israel is still treating it as the most important in terms of military resources (and diplomatically, it may be the most important front.)
Originally, when longer meant from October until January, part of the purpose of being willing to drag out the war longer was to take the necessary time to defeat Hamas in different pockets of Gaza while leaving time to move the Palestinian civilian population from place to place in between invasions.
Another part was to use the mix of ongoing pressure and threats of continued impending military invasions and pressure to wear Hamas down into cutting a deal to return the Israeli hostages.
A third part was that a slower war using strategic air strikes, tanks, and artillery as a prelude to infantry invasions of various areas meant fewer infantry casualties.
The theory was that Israel’s air defense was strong enough to withstand whatever Hamas could fire on the home front up until the point that the IDF destroyed most of Hamas’s rocket firing capability around December-January.
But all of this was assuming the war with Hamas would end around January – the official estimate of all defense officials in October-November – and that the other fronts would stay relatively quiet.
But as the war drew on, Hezbollah started firing on a larger number of northern towns and cities; Yemen joined the war, at first only against Eilat, but eventually also striking Tel Aviv, and now aiming again for central Israel.
Iran started pushing much harder to threaten Israel from the West Bank, Syria, and Iraq, as well as encouraging its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen to take more risks against Israel.
Israel’s increasing tolerance for terrorism
Prior to the war, Israel had come to terms with a horrible, nearly 20-year-long conceit that it would be “ok” with low-level rocket and other attacks on its Gaza corridor villages as long as this did not touch the rest of the country.
From March 2022 until October 7, 2023, most of Israel came to terms with it being “ok” for significant waves of terror against Jews in the West Bank as long as not too much of it crossed the Green Line.
Starting on October 8, 2023, Israel decided it was “ok” for 60,000 northern residents to be evacuated from their homes and for whole towns and cities to be ghost towns, not just for a few weeks, but for nearly a year and counting with no deadline in sight.
Then, it was “ok” for Eilat to be attacked from time to time by the Houthis as long as the missiles were shot down outside of Israeli airspace.
On April 13-14, it became “ok” for Iran to launch over 300 aerial threats at Israel as long as a remarkable number of the threats were shot down, people were not killed, and Israel got to “deter” Tehran in a retaliatory strike against its S-300 anti-aircraft missile system on April 19.
It was “ok” that Israel got into a huge fight about a partial arms freeze with the US in May and that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, which had warned Israel but stayed on the sidelines from October to May, went more all out after the Jewish state in May.
It was “ok” that Hezbollah in August wanted to target 11 IDF bases and northern Tel Aviv key intelligence headquarters as long as the military preemptively struck hard enough on August 25 that Hezbollah’s main goals were thwarted.
The truth is that many of Israel’s nuanced approaches would have worked if the war had ended a long time ago or shortly after the nuanced retaliation.
And there were critics of Israel bashing it from November onward.
But when time continues to drag on, Israel’s enemies on many fronts have more time to dissect the way the IDF operates and when and where it lets its guard down more, and then get lots of chances to test the many potential holes. When time drags on, Israel’s legitimacy problems move from critics to its top allies like the US, UK, and France and metastasize with the international courts from a minor problem to a major crisis.
On Thursday of last week, I was in Rafah in Gaza. There were no Palestinians to be seen. No battles. No gunfire. I had my helmet and flak jacket, and they moved us around in a Namer armored vehicle. I felt as safe as could be. Of course, there are still thousands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and if anyone ignores them as we did on October 7, there could be another disaster in Israel’s future.
But right now, they can barely pose a threat to IDF forces a block away from them – and that only if the forces are not in Namers and lack air and tank support – let alone to anyone outside of Gaza.
This morning, waking up at 6:21 a.m. in Modiin to rocket sirens after months of quiet, not knowing whether Hezbollah or Iran was firing missiles at us, only to then learn that it was the Houthis, I felt far less safe than I had in Gaza.
When I traveled to Paatei Modiin Train Station Platform 4 this morning and saw the impact of shrapnel on an escalator I have walked on a thousand times, it was clear how many people could have been killed if the Houthis had fired an hour or two later than 6:21 a.m. This is without even getting to the mass mayhem and death that even one ballistic missile getting through to a populated area could cause.
How the war should end, and whether it should be with a quick ceasefire to get back the hostages or with a relatively quick but intense major invasion of Lebanon, synchronized with major strikes on other parties threatening Israel, is an important debate.
Yet, whichever direction is chosen, Israel should pick a direction and act to wrap things up rapidly and decisively.
And anyone who thinks that the war can just continue with no price on these other fronts beyond Gaza until after the US elections in November is kidding themselves and ignoring the writing on the wall on a grossly negligent and serial basis.
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Ex-CENTCOM chief: Lower Iranian officials can push nuke breakout without Khamenei – interview
Lower Iranian officials could potentially push the country to break out to a nuclear weapon even without consulting their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former CENTCOM chief and JINSA distinguished fellow General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie has told the Jerusalem Post.
In a recent interview, McKenzie was asked about recent reports by the Jerusalem Post and others, including US and Israeli officials, that the Islamic Republic is finally advancing its nuclear “weapons group” activities, such as nuclear detonation issues, and not only its uranium enrichment activities.
He responded, “I think they are flirting with breaking out, but they have not made a decision to do it. The command and control in Iran is so rickety, that you cannot assume a decision by the Supreme Leader. This could happen at a lower level.”
“The Iranians routinely have taken military action at lower levels without approval of the Supreme Leader. There is no reason not to apply this to other elements as well and I would not be surprised,” said McKenzie.The former CENTCOM chief and JINSA distinguished fellow added that his analysis on this point was based “on actions we have seen in the military sphere.”
McKenzie’s comment were extremely significant because the conventional wisdom tends to be that Khamenei has tight control over nuclear policy, buy former IDF intelligence chief Tamir Hayman has told the Post in the past that the best way to track any potential Iranian decision to breakout to a nuclear bomb would be to follow nuclear scientists and officials at the lower levels.
With all of the focus on the Iranian nuclear threat, McKenzie had some other interesting views on the Islamic Republic, including that its ballistic missiles threat is currently more dangerous than the nuclear threat.
“My argument about Iran, which is contrary to lots of people, is that Iran doesn’t want to possess a nuclear weapon, but wants to be able to possess a nuclear weapon. They are flirting with breakout. They can produce enough fissile material in a matter of weeks. But they have not chosen to do it. By not crossing that line, from which they could never come back from, they can work on the US and the Europeans for concessions,” he said.
Further, he stated, “The other half of the equation, the Iran nuclear weapons problem is not a physics problem, because they are so close…But they must have a missile to take it there [to the target] and a warhead which can survive reentry into the atmosphere. It will take months, perhaps many months. The physics problem can be solved quickly. This is an aeronautical engineering problem.”
Regarding, “the other half of the equation – we [the US and Israel] agreed that Tehran should not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. However, what the Iranians have done over the last 10-15 years is improve their ballistic missile, drone, land attack cruise missile capabilities” against the Saudis, the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, such that Iran “can gain overmatch [overpower] against them.”
The Iran missile attack
On April 13-14, Iran fired around 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones, and dozens of cruise missiles at Israel.
“What is new to the equation? They tasted their template in mid-April. By any objective situational assessment, the attack [against Israel] failed.” Then explaining why Iran’s April attack failed, he said, “the Israelis are pretty good, the US assisted, neighbors in the region assisted, geography assisted given that Iranian missiles had to travel a long way. This gave Israel strategic depth in which to intercept those weapons. So Iran must recalculate,” how much it can threaten Israel.
McKenzie recounted that former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi said after US President Joe Biden was elected and “there was talk about returning to the JCPOA and there was talk also about other weapons,” being limited within the deal. The Iranians said, “we are never going to give up our ballistic missiles. They represent the center of gravity of Iranian capabilities – not necessarily the nuclear program.”
Further, McKenzie argued that Iran’s April attack on Israel had nothing to do with Gaza. Rather, he said it was a show of how desperate Iran was to do something to stop Israel from pummeling it in the “shadow war” between the countries.
Digging into the details of the ballistic missile threat Iran posed in April versus the threat they could pose going forward, he explained that out of around 3,000 total ballistic missiles, the Iranians have around 1,000 total ballistic missiles which have sufficient range to reach Tel Aviv.
But both to the Post and in a separate JINSA event, he discussed Iran’s “salvo rate”: meaning that Tehran probably can only fire a couple hundred missiles at a time maximum because it only has around 300 ballistic missile launchers and even fewer TEL (Transporter Erector Launcher] tractors, around 100-250, for moving the ballistic missiles to launch positions. This limits the number of ballistic missiles it could launch at Israel at a time probably to between 100-250, as opposed to the full 1,000.
The former CENTCOM chief said, “This has been a problem for the Iranians throughout. April probably represented the most ballistic missiles they can shoot at any time – based on the number of launchers.”
He did acknowledge that the Islamic Republic “could reload, but it takes time to do that. This is an important technical and tactical distinction.”
Told by the Post that current US defense officials urged Israel not to respond at all to Iran’s April attack, given that Tehran was embarrassed by Israel and its allies’ success in shooting down 99% of the aerial threats, McKenzie said that this approach “was a misunderstanding of the basic relationships in the Middle East. Turning the other cheek does not go a long way in the region.”
“The level of the Israeli response was brilliant and carefully calibrated. They walked a very fine line – it was just enough, but not too much,” referring to Israel’s destruction on April 19 of a key part of Iran’s S-300 antiaircraft missile system meant to protect its critical Natanz nuclear facility.
Next, McKenzie was asked about what lessons should be drawn from the more recent exchange of attacks and threatened attacks between Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah over the killing of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr and the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Tehran.
Will Iran still launch a new major attack in the near future as its Supreme Leader Khamenei had promised? McKenzie responded, “I think he got cold feet. The Supreme Leader said right after the strike in Tehran, that they would respond in 48 hours. Then nothing happened. Here is why. He listened to his military guys who told him ‘our options against Israel will probably lead to the same result’” as Israel’s embarrassment of Iran in April.
He added, “Israel’s response to [Iran’s aerial attack] on April 13, was brilliant. They went into the Isfahan corridor and caused minimal damage. They used technological superiority with restraint. The Iranians are befuddled by it. They [Israel] didn’t push the US away [by overreacting], they didn’t push other countries away from Israel… and the Iranians don’t have a capability to hurt Israel directly.”
However, he warned “Lebanese Hezbollah does have such a capability [to harm Israel directly], but if they generate a massive attack – such as hundreds of missiles into Tel Aviv and Haifa over a short period of time, the Israeli response would be massive and overwhelming. They [Israel] can hurt Hezbollah deeply and [Hezbollah Chief Hassan] Nasrallah understands that. It will not be a stalking horse for Iran, even though it is supported by it.”
Further, he said, “Nasrallah’s relative position in Lebanon is weaker than in the past. The government is in paralysis. Hezbollah is getting the blame. He is not as strong politically as [during the Second Lebanon War] in 2006. He is committed to destroying Israel, but he won’t engage in strategic combat” if he would face strategic defeat.
Continuing, he said, “There is lower level back and forth and this moved Israeli citizens south [fleeing Hezbollah missile fire in the North]. But Lebanese Hezbollah has no interest in getting into a big war, and they know about Iran’s limited ability” to strike at Israel.
Questioned about whether Iran could adjust its ballistic missile delivery process to achieve greater strategic surprise against Israel, he said, “Nothing stays the same. The Iranians work very hard to get better. They can build more TELS, drones and land [based] cruise missiles to destroy Israeli radars. All air defenses are ineffective against ballistic missiles without radars.”
But no matter how Iran improves, he said Israel would have a long warning time, with the Post noting around a 16 minute warning time in April: “16 minutes is a long time. Iran’s ballistic missiles are more Gulf-oriented. They could go to underground sites and fixed sites. But fixed sites can be destroyed. We should encourage them to do fixed moves,” he said with a sly smile.
Addressing the question of whether Israel has missed the opportunity to normalize with the Saudis due to the current war extending for nearly a year, and given that McKenzie knew Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman personally as CENTCOM chief, he said, “Normalization is inevitable because it is driven by Iranian behavior, which poses an existential threat to the close Saudi and Gulf states. It may be delayed a bit, but it is inevitable that nations must act about what threatens their highest survival.”
Confronting the state of the war in Gaza, McKenzie said, “In 11 months, there has been significant military attrition of Hamas. But I don’t think it is completely finished militarily. If the US or Israel militarily take 20-30% casualties, they become combat ineffective because we maneuver on attack.”
In contrast, Hamas is “fighting in fixed cells and does not maneuver, so it can absorb much larger casualties. They cannot carry out command and control functions, but they can fight until they die. That’s why Hamas on the ground is still a factor in Gaza.”
Signaling an optimistic hope, he said, “My Israeli friends laugh, but I think the future must involve the two state solution. In the future in Gaza, there must be some other force other than the Israeli military. If Israel’s military will fight forever, I don’t think Israel wants that. Hamas does want that.”
“There needs to be in the future some form of limited sovereignty,” noting many “don’t want to talk about that until they finish the campaign.” He added that in some past wars, “the US had campaigns without a clear end state,” which led to many problems. He suggested that in Gaza, “The vision would not necessarily envision a continuous sustained occupation on the ground, though lots of people disagree. But unless they are willing to fight forever, with the trickle of casualties every day and the loss of Gazan lives, they need to find a way forward
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