Netanyahu is leading Israel to all-out regional war: Retired Israeli general
Retired Israeli General Itzhak Brik has called on Israelis to wake up before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi embroiled the country in an all-out regional war that would wreak havoc on Israel.
Brik said in an opinion article in Israel’s Maariv newspaper that “the leadership of the country is in a state of madness, and such a decisive decision regarding its fate – that is, to fight a war against Hezbollah by air, land and sea – is in the hands of the three who have completely lost their decision-making ability and responsibility for what is happening around them”.
“During the eight months of the war in Gaza, the three have already made decisions that could set the entire Middle East on fire and destroy Israel,” he said. “We should not keep the decision to decide the fate of the country in their hands if we want to live, because they will not lead us to a safe shore.”
Logically, he said, Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi should be denied a war driver’s licence, just as a drunken driver is denied a driver’s licence after crossing a red light several times and causing a fatal accident is only a matter of time.
The retired Israeli general referred to the decisions the three have made since the beginning of the war, including their “decision to attack the Iranian consulate in Syria, an attack that led to the launch of more than 300 ballistic missiles, as well as drones and cruise missiles. A direct confrontation with Iran could have led to a regional war and even a world war.”
Israel’s energy minister calls for military operation against Hezbollah
Eli Cohen has called for the start of a large-scale military operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
He told local radio station Kol Hai that “red lines have been crossed in the north” of Israel by the Lebanese armed group, leaving his government with “no other option”.
Asked about the scenario of a large-scale power outage in northern Israel if the war broke out, Cohen said: “I didn’t buy a generator. We generate electricity from dozens of sources. We have underground bunkers. There is no room for panic.”
Iran ‘not interested’ in regional war, US must restrain Israel: Khamenei’s aide
Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has told the Financial Times newspaper that Iran will support the Lebanese Hezbollah movement with “all means” if Israel launches an all-out offensive against the group.
But Kharrazi added that his country was “not interested” in a regional war and urged the US to put pressure on Israel to prevent further escalation.
“There would be a chance of expansion of the war to the whole region, in which all countries including Iran would become engaged,” he told the newspaper. “In that situation, we would have no choice, but to support Hezbollah by all means.”
US official who quit over Gaza warns against Israel-Hezbollah war: Report
Harrison Mann, a former US military intelligence commander who left the army over the US support for Israel, has said that a war between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel would be a disaster.
“We know specifically that the Israeli prime minister must continue to be a wartime leader if he wants to prolong his political career and stay out of court, so that motivation is there,” Mann told The Guardian newspaper in the UK.
“I don’t know how realistic their assessments are of the destruction that Israel would incur, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a realistic idea of how successful they would be against Hezbollah,” he added.
Israel’s army is well aware it cannot strike a decisive blow against Hezbollah’s armoury with preemptive strikes, as the rockets, missiles and artillery are dug into the mountainous Lebanese landscape, Mann said.
Mann predicted Hezbollah would unleash a mass rocket and missile attack, inflicting “a level of destruction on Israel that I’m not sure Israel has really ever experienced in its history”.
At least one killed in Israeli air attack on southern Lebanon’s Boustane town
At least one person has been killed in an Israeli air attack on southern Lebanon’s Boustane town, according to local media. The Bint Jbeil online newspaper identified him as Mohieddin Abu Deli.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) earlier reported that Israeli warplanes raided the outskirts of the towns of Boustane and Zalloutiyeh. It was not clear whether the attack on Zalloutiyeh resulted in any damage or casualties.
Suspected hostile aircraft downed over Lebanon: Israeli army
The Israeli military says fighter jets have shot down a suspected hostile aircraft over Kafr Kila in southern Lebanon. In a separate incident, air defences fired at another suspected drone after warning sirens sounded in the Malkia settlement in northern Israel, the army said on X.
Neither suspected drone entered Israeli airspace, according to the army.
