Fighters from Iran-backed groups are willing to fight for Hezbollah, as Netanyahu indicates Israeli troops could be redirected from Gaza to Israel’s northern border to confront the militant group.
Thousands of fighters from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East are prepared to join Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a potential full-scale war against Israel if tensions escalate further, according to officials from Iran-backed factions and analysts.
Lebanon’s border with northern Israel has seen almost daily exchanges of fire since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in early October.
On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would now send more troops to its northern border to confront Hezbollah, implying that fighting in Gaza would now die down.
The escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah threatens to open up a wider regional war involving Iran’s proxies and potentially Iran itself.
The US has warned against such an offensive, with a top US military official saying on Sunday that any Israeli offensive into Lebanon that could trigger a wider war would put US forces in the region in danger.
The US is expected to use diplomatic means to try and prevent the conflict from escalating when Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visits Washington for meetings with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior US officials this week.
The exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah has increased in intensity after an Israeli strike killed one of Hezbollah’s senior commanders- Taleb Abdullah- in south-eastern Lebanon.
Hezbollah have retaliated by firing over two hundred rockets into northern Israel, one of its largest attacks since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October.
Israeli officials have threatened a military offensive in Lebanon if there is no negotiated end to push Hezbollah away from the border.
The increase in strikes and subsequent rhetoric has led officials to believe that a wider conflict in the region may be possible.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned reporters in New York on Friday that Lebanon “could not afford to become another Gaza” and that “the risk for the conflict in the Middle East to widen is real – and must be avoided.”
Over the past decade, Iran-backed fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan grouped together to fight in Syria’s 13-year conflict, helping tip the balance in favour of Syrian President Bashar Assad.