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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers in his government that he has received a green light from US President Donald Trump to launch an attack in Lebanon, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Wednesday evening.
The report comes a few days after Kan said, citing two informed sources, that Israel is considering a military operation in Lebanon aimed at eliminating what it described as the “Hezbollah threat”.
Kan said Netanyahu discussed expanding Israeli attacks in Lebanon with President Trump during a meeting in Florida in late December.
According to the broadcaster, Hezbollah has been able to rebuild some of its capabilities during the ceasefire. Israeli officials also claimed that the Lebanese government is unable to confront the group.
The sources added that the Trump administration does not rule out the possibility of Israel carrying out an operation against Hezbollah. However, they said Netanyahu was asked to delay any decision to allow further dialogue with the Lebanese government.
This assessment comes amid ongoing tension along the Lebanese–Israeli border and growing debate in Israel about the failure of political and diplomatic efforts to force Hezbollah to disarm, raising the prospect of a new phase of careful military calculations.
READ: US approves Israeli ‘special operations’ in Gaza; Report
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
