A Ground Offensive with Hezbollah? + Other Headlines

Tuesday Digest (09.24.24)

Was Israel’s Pager Attack a Prelude to Full-Scale War?

An opinion piece published yesterday in Axios asks this question: Is Israel about to invade Lebanon?

The author, a professor of international relations and senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, wonders if the attacks did more than just sow chaos within Hezbollah or disrupt the group’s ability to communicate. It could also be the prelude to an all-out assault north of Israel’s border:

Hezbollah relies on relatively rudimentary but critical communication technologies to coordinate military activities across its network of fighters and command centers. By targeting these communication channels, Israel effectively crippled Hezbollah’s command-and-control structure, making it increasingly difficult for the group to execute coordinated attacks and weakening its operational effectiveness.

From one perspective, these strikes may be interpreted as an early stage of a larger, more expansive Israeli military campaign. In modern warfare, disrupting the enemy’s ability to communicate is often the first step in preparing for a ground offensive.

In other words, an invasion of southern Lebanon may be imminent.