Northern Israel remains under constant attack, and upwards of 100,000 of its residents have been displaced for over a year, so to call it “saved” at this point might be a slight overstatement.
But, we now know that the enemy planned more, much more, for the Galilee, and that those plans were thwarted due to apparent division and confusion among the Iran-led “axis of resistance.”
“Confuse my enemies, Lord! Upset their plans.” (Psalm 55:9)
The Hamas invasion was catastrophic, “but it was followed by a miracle,” said Yossi Kakon, the new mayor of Safed (Tzefat), one of the most targeted towns in northern Israel.
“Hezbollah planned to invade and occupy the towns of northern Israel,” he told the ultra-Orthodox news outlet Kikar HaShabbat.
Had Hezbollah invaded northern Israel simultaneously with the Hamas invasion of the western Negev on October 7, 2023, there is a high probability that it would have caused 5-10 times more damage and casualties than what happened in the south, and that large portions of the Galilee would have been conquered and temporarily occupied.
But whether due to apprehension or to Hamas jumping the gun in service to its own legacy, Hezbollah didn’t invade, and Israel quickly shored up its northern defenses to allow the IDF time to deal decisively with Gaza.
To fight, or to settle?
Still, Hezbollah continued to make life in Israel’s northern border region untenable with incessant rocket and drone attacks, and the nation groaned over the government’s perceived disinterest in or unwillingness to go to war in Lebanon.
This frustration was exasperated by numerous experts who insisted war in Lebanon wasn’t necessary, and that yet another deal could be made with the Hezbollah devil.
Many of those experts have since changed their tune. Like retired Maj.-Gen. Israel Ziv, a fixture in Israeli news studios since the start of the war, who admitted last week that his earlier assessments regarding Hezbollah had been wrong.
“I pushed for a [diplomatic] settlement in Lebanon. I made a big mistake. I did not correctly assess Hezbollah’s preparations and intentions to start a war against Israel. Our maneuvers there at the moment are critical,” he told local radio.
Since launching the ground operation in southern Lebanon a month ago, the IDF has exposed widespread evidence of Hezbollah preparations for a large-scale military invasion of the Galilee.
“We have been saying for years that Hezbollah is preparing the area of the border for war. To the countries that doubted it, to the UN, to the UNIFIL force that was [stationed] up here…We caught this in time, before it was too late, and this infrastructure must not return here… pic.twitter.com/IImuQv0sM6
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 28, 2024
Hezbollah’s pre-war military might was far superior to that of Hamas. “And we saw what relatively-weak Gaza did,” noted Kakon. “Imagine what could have happened in the north! God had mercy, it was a miracle.”
After 11 months of what appeared to be tit-for-tat aerial attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, Kakon said he is pleased that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood his ground against all those pushing for a diplomatic settlement, and chose to launch a real war to eliminate the threat.
“I am satisfied that we are not moving toward a ceasefire, but are eliminating the immediate threat [both of invasion and missile attacks],” concluded the mayor.
More than that, Hezbollah’s plans and capabilities have been set back by decades, and if Israel can stay the present course might be eliminated altogether, as a weakened Hezbollah might find it difficult to survive in a Lebanon that is growing fed up with its destructive antics.
