Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tells tank crews they’ll help calm Israel-Lebanon border

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said ground forces would be part of efforts to remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, an indication that incursions across the border may be coming.

Briefing tank crews deployed along the border, Gallant described Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week as “a very important step” toward achieving its war goal of returning tens of thousands of residents displaced by missile and drone salvos fired by the militant group.

“But it is not the final one,” he said. “We will employ all the capabilities at our disposal, and if someone on the other side did not understand what those capabilities entail, we mean all capabilities, and you are part of this effort,” Gallant said, according to a video distributed by his office. He did not elaborate.

The minister “was briefed by commanders on the ground, about the readiness of troops for the possibility of expanding activities in the northern arena,” according to the Defense Ministry readout of the visit.

Israel has been under Hezbollah attacks since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas, a Palestinian faction sponsored by Iran, swarmed into the south of the country and began the Gaza war. While Israeli troops then moved into the enclave, they have refrained from major actions on Lebanese soil.

There have been small-scale commando reconnaissance probes across the border for months, security officials say. A few weeks ago, Israel’s Channel 12 aired interviews with wounded troops from the Israel Defense Forces, one of whom said he had stepped on a land mine during a secret mission in Lebanon.

Eyal Hulata, a former national security adviser, said the goal is a diplomatic solution that takes Hezbollah away from the border with Israel. As one possible means of getting there, he said in a briefing for journalists on Monday, “clearly the IDF is preparing for a ground invasion.”

Moshe Davidovich, a representative of Israeli communities on the western end of the border region, said he had attended a meeting with Gallant where the defense minister vowed to remove the Hezbollah threat to a depth of six miles (10 kilometers) into Lebanese territory.

“We received a promise that the IDF would do everything required in order to clean out all of the terrorist nests that threaten the State of Israel’s northern border, our evacuated communities,” Davidovich told Channel 12. “I left with a very, very good feeling.”

Washington has been trying to broker a cease-fire that would also see the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from the border, and has voiced opposition to any Israeli ground operations in Lebanon. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated as terrorist groups by the U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Washington on Monday, said the Middle East is safer after the death of Nasrallah and that the U.S. is continuing to push for a diplomatic solution.

Israel had previously said it was open to talks, but Hezbollah said it would enter diplomacy only after a cease-fire in Gaza. Talks for such a truce, along with a release of Israeli hostages, have been deadlocked.

Over the past two weeks, Israel has unleashed a massive air barrage to eliminate Hezbollah’s commanders and deplete the group’s arsenal, seeking to force it away from the border.

Israeli military experts say that has not been enough to uproot Hezbollah bunkers, tunnels and hidden firing positions along the 75-mile frontier. Yet some government critics say incursions could lead to the creation of another long-term “security zone” - Israel’s term for its 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon.

Nasrallah said in a Sept. 19 speech that Hezbollah would welcome the chance to fight Israeli incursions. His deputy, Naim Qassem, said on Monday that the group remains ready to fight on the ground.