US warns Hezbollah to expect 'big strikes' in east and south, but no wider offensive
The Biden administration has informed Hezbollah through Lebanese mediators that Israel plans to conduct “big strikes” in the east and south of Lebanon in retaliation for an attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but will stop well short of a major offensive.
A senior Arab official briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye that the warnings have been delivered to avert a “full-fledged” war with Lebanon, potentially so Hezbollah could move senior commanders out of the area.
The US push to avert a war comes as Israel claimed responsibility for a strike on a suburb south of Beirut, that it said targeted a senior Hezbollah commander.
“The Biden administration is piling pressure and certainly trying to choreograph this," Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank, told MEE.