The News
Israel announced an expansion of its week-long ground offensive in Lebanon on Tuesday after conducting airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight.
The Israeli military said it was conducting ”limited, localised, targeted operational activities″ inside southwestern Lebanon against Hezbollah sites, using its reserve division.
The move comes as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned any attacks on the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure would be met with retaliation. Araghchi will visit Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries starting on Tuesday to discuss regional issues and work on stopping Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon, according to Iran’s ISNA News Agency.
SIGNALS
Israel is delaying retaliation against Iran as it contemplates which targets to hit
It’s inevitable that Israel will strike Tehran in retaliation for its missile barrage last week, a columnist argued in Haaretz, saying the delay in doing so represents both a show of strength and a tactical reversal of previous occasions where Tehran and Hezbollah’s own delays have sent Israelis into a panicked waiting period. One problem, however, is that Israeli officials are “agonizing over which targets to hit,” he added, as attacking energy infrastructure would risk thousands of injuries, and global blame for an oil price spike. Israel is unlikely to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, which the Biden administration has warned against, even as some officials in both Israel and Washington are urging it to “seize the moment,” The New York Times wrote.
Israel is getting stuck in a war of attrition with no meaningful ‘strategic vision’
In Israel’s expanded multifront war — which now includes Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq — there have been “tactical victories” but “no strategic vision,” an Israeli security analyst told The Guardian. Contrary to Israel’s operational doctrine of fighting short wars against non-state actors with missiles, the conflicts have become wars of attrition, the outlet noted. Hamas vowed to continue a “long and painful war of attrition” against Israel on Monday, Middle East Eye reported, and although the group is now in “guerilla mode… incapable of orchestrating elaborate attacks,” the ongoing war is depleting Israeli manpower and harming the country’s economy, The Economist noted.