Netanyahu faces political dilemma after Trump prevents attack in Lebanon

Faced with strong domestic pressure to act against Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans earlier this week to attack the group in the Lebanese capital. Hours later, after an intervention by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the operation was suspended.

Netanyahu said he would not accept a scenario "in which Hezbollah attacks our cities and our citizens, and its terrorist headquarters in Beirut, in Dahiyeh, remains out of reach." In the afternoon, the military issued an evacuation warning for Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut.

The prime minister has come under increasing pressure to escalate the conflict in Lebanon, as Hezbollah rockets reach deeper into Israel and its explosive drones injure and kill Israeli soldiers.

Opposition parliamentarian Avigdor Liberman said Israel should have bombed Dahiyeh "a long time ago", claiming that "one in every two houses there has links to Hezbollah". The Israeli military has also been pushing to resume attacks on Beirut.

Since the ceasefire with Iran came into force in April, the US has largely prevented Israel from attacking Beirut. Instead, Israel has carried out a series of attacks against southern Lebanon and, more recently, the Bekaa Valley.

During the truce, Israel attacked Beirut only twice, targeting high-ranking Hezbollah commanders.

As the hours passed at the beginning of the week, no Israeli attack on Beirut was carried out, increasing speculation that it would not meet with White House approval.

After a heated telephone conversation, Trump made his instructions to Netanyahu clear. "There will be no troops heading to Beirut, and any troops that were on their way have already been blocked from entering," he said on social media. (There was no stated plan to send Israeli ground troops to Beirut.)

Netanyahu promised that attacks in southern Lebanon would continue "as planned." But Trump has placed Netanyahu in a difficult political dilemma at a critical moment: a large part of the Israeli population demands an escalation in Lebanon precisely when Trump does not allow it.

Netanyahu, who has repeatedly celebrated his relationship with Trump, is unlikely to challenge the American president publicly.

And all this happens amid an imminent election in Israel, in which Netanyahu has no decisive victory to offer voters. Not in Lebanon, Gaza or Iran.

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Source: CNN