While the war in Gaza against Hamas is on track to become the bloodiest conflict in Israel in half a century, the escalation of war events on the border with Lebanon threatens to open a new front against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia. The expansion of hostilities from south to north is no small risk. The Lebanese guerrillas, who ended up in a near stalemate fighting the Israeli army in 2006, have tens of thousands of militiamen hardened by a decade of war in Syria and more than 200,000 rockets aimed at the Jewish state.
“I’m not afraid. But we’re on high alert and that’s pretty impressive,” says Corporal Tomer, 26, who declines to give his last name in Spanish with a Buenos Aires sound. This reservist with a dazzling dark bun with blonde strands, who was urgently mobilized along with 300,000 other young people last weekend, spoke during the sandwich break as he stood guard at the old Rosh Hanikra border post this Tuesday. “Nobody comes to visit the sea caves anymore,” he said in front of a mestizo landscape of tourist attractions and barbed wire barricades in the language his grandmother – an Argentine Jew – taught him after the family emigrated to Israel more than three decades ago. “This has become a military security zone. Yesterday [por el lunes] “The echoes of the fighting could be heard several kilometers away.”
At least six fighters died on Monday in the worst incident in 17 years at the Blue Line, the tense border that separates Lebanon from Israel and is monitored by U.N. peacekeepers. Two Palestinian Islamic Jihad members exiled in Lebanon who infiltrated Israeli territory lost their lives; an Israeli army officer who confronted them and three Hezbollah militiamen in a retaliatory attack from Israeli helicopters.
More information
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Opposing sides have increased the enemy’s casualty toll in the bloodiest day since the war ended in the summer of 2006. Then 1,300 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 165 Israelis, almost all of them, died in 33 days of fighting. When the guns fell silent, 10,800 soldiers from 40 countries, including 600 Spaniards, were sent to the border by the international interposition force. The current commander of the Interim Nations Force for Lebanon (UNIFIL), Spanish General Aroldo Lázaro, has now called on the opposing parties to exercise the greatest possible restraint and coordinate with the UN contingent in order to prevent the war from escalating.
Israeli soldiers, this Tuesday near the border with Lebanon. Associated Press/LaPresse (APN)
The border between Lebanon and Israel includes disputed areas such as the so-called Sheba Farms, valleys and cliffs that Israel has occupied for 56 years, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights. Inside is the headland from which, on January 28, 2015, near the town of Marjayun, the headquarters of the Spanish UNIFIL contingent, the Israeli artillery projectile was launched, which was assigned to the Spanish non-commissioned officer Francisco Javier Soria Toledo, who was with the UN force was stationed, cost his life. Hezbollah fired new volleys of rockets this Tuesday morning, and Israeli artillery responded by destroying the projectile launching positions near the towns of Blida and Meiss al Jabal. There was an exchange of fire in the afternoon.
At the old Rosh Hanikra border post, the concentration of forces and the use of Israeli resources is obvious. Observation drones monitor the airspace with their distinctive drone, while naval boats and patrol boats seal the maritime border. The presence of the massive Merkava IV battle tanks, the troop transports and the use of reservist units show that these were not simple maneuvers.
More information
“I graduated five years ago after serving as a military medic for almost three years,” Tomer recalls. “Then I traveled around Latin America for a year, and now I was finishing my nursing degree,” he says, “but I’m in a combat unit, and when they call me to defend my country, I have to go there, wherever they call me. “I could have been one of those who attended the party on the border with Gaza, where Hamas committed a massacre,” explained the Israeli soldier of Argentine origin.
Ghost populations
At his side, Gideon El Minerch, a 56-year-old truck driver who came from a Jewish family that emigrated to Israel from Morocco, handed out breaded meat sandwiches and cans of soft drinks to soldiers at the old border post. “I’m not old enough to fight anymore, but I volunteer where I can. “If I leave here, I will have to drive to Eilat (on the Red Sea coast) with my truck loaded with vegetables,” he admits of his worries about having to cross one of the areas of Gaza most hit by rockets from the Islamic militias. , about 200 kilometers south of Rosh Hanikra.
The cities in northern Israel closest to the Lebanese border have become ghost towns. Neighbors hide in their homes or near bomb shelters if they don’t have safe rooms in their homes. Since classes have been suspended since Monday, many families with minors have moved to relatives in the Tel Aviv area.
As tensions rise on the border between Israel and Lebanon, two countries that are technically still at war and do not recognize each other diplomatically, the battle group of the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford, the Navy’s most powerful, sails through nearby waters of the eastern Mediterranean. of the United States. A senior Pentagon official quoted by Portal has already warned Hezbollah against making the “wrong decision” to open a second front against Israel.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.