Hezbollah rocket attacks targeting northern Israel have sparked forest fires that have raged in the region for days, destroying large swaths of forest and leaving 11 people hospitalized with smoke inhalation. The fires have prompted renewed calls for the Israeli government to end escalating tensions with Hezbollah in the north.
Visiting a fire brigade in the town of Kiryat Shmona on Tuesday, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the government should respond to Hezbollah rocket attacks with war. Israeli Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi, who also visited the region, said the country was “approaching a decision point” and that the Israeli military was “prepared to launch an offensive.”
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassim, told Al Jazeera television that the group does not seek an escalation of the conflict with Israel but would retaliate with “destruction” if Israel escalated the war.
The Israeli government recognizes that Hezbollah is a better trained and better equipped enemy than Hamas, and it was determined to confine the conflict to the north, knowing that the fighting here would not be like that in Gaza.
But the fire has thrust this devastating and forgotten conflict onto the front pages of Israel’s national newspapers, putting renewed pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to act.
