THE world is facing a never-ending war as Iran-backed Hezbollah pushes Lebanon towards a bloody Gaza-like fate, experts have warned.
Israel is bracing for an attack from Tehran’s largest puppet proxy in Lebanon – where civilians will end up as collateral damage if tensions explode, former intelligence officers said.
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After Hamas launched a brutal ambush on Israeli soil in October last year, the Middle East entered a new phase of conflict like it has never seen before.
Israel vowed to obliterate Hamas and poured into the Gaza Strip, engaging in almost 10 months of warfare and airstrikes which have killed tens of thousands of people.
Tehran’s sprawling network of proxy groups in the region – namely Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – have raged against Tel Aviv with a newfound ferocity ever since.
Following a spate of high-profile terrorist assassinations by Israel in recent weeks, a fresh threat of war now looms.
Avi Melamed, former Israeli intelligence official and security analyst, warned that the violence which has “always been part and parcel” of the Middle East isn’t going anywhere.
He told The Sun that despite Israel’s efforts in the war-torn Strip, “Hamas is not going to disappear, Hezbollah is not going to disappear”.
Because “the radical ideologies they come from are not going to disappear”, he said.
It means Lebanon may face the same fate as Gaza as Israel attempts to hold back Hezbollah, analysts warned.
Professor Anthony Glees, security expert from the University of Buckingham, told The Sun: “Israel is very well placed to take Lebanon apart brick by brick, as it has done in the case of Gaza.”
But this would push the Middle East further into a “state of perpetual war”, he warned.
Retired British Army commander Colonel Richard Kemp, speaking to The Sun from Tel Aviv, told how Israel is bracing for a strike from Iran and Hezbollah any day now.
“If there is severe damage in Israel, particularly if a lot of people get killed, there is going to be severe repercussions by Israel against Iran and against Hezbollah,” he said.
“And who knows how that could escalate?”
Former British tank commander Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said civilians in Lebanon will pay the price for a renewed wave of violence.
He told The Sun true peace in the never-ending cycle of Middle East violence “doesn’t exist”.
‘PERPETUAL WAR’
Prof Glees has previously told The Sun how Hezbollah is Iran’s largest and most dangerous proxy group.
He explained that the extremist network, estimated to have as many as 50,000 fighters and 200,000 missiles, is Israel’s worst enemy.
Speaking to The Sun this week, he said Netanyahu has wreaked havoc in Gaza in an effort to defeat Hamas.
He said if spiralling tensions between Hezbollah and Israel do implode, Lebanon could meet the same fate as the Palestinian enclave.
“Israel has massive lethal firepower,” Prof Glees said.
“Israel is very well placed to take Lebanon apart brick by brick, as it has done in the case of Gaza.”
But he said this would push the Middle East further into an endless cycle of conflict.
“Netanyahu is perfectly capable of this attempt to obliterate Hezbollah. Now is his best chance,” he said.
“I would not be surprised if that was what he was going to do, in all honesty. But I think it would be futile.
“It would lead to a state of perpetual war in the Middle East.”
After the death of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut in late July, the terror group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to carry out a “strong” revenge strike.
Israel is expecting a retaliatory hit from Hezbollah before Iran – which has also vowed to seek vengeance for the death of a Hamas commander in capital Tehran on July 31.
The US told its civilians in Lebanon to get on the first flight out available while Brit troops are poised in the region for a military-grade evacuation operation.
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ON THE BRINK
In Israel, Colonel Kemp said the streets are “very quiet” as the country braces for a retaliatory attack from Iran or Hezbollah.
Colonel Kemp told The Sun there’s “every possibility” that Iran will launch a missile attack as it did in April – likely with Hezbollah.
It could even be a “two-staged attack”, he warned, “possibly lasting several days”.
And he said Iranian proxies could attempt a “ground operation” that follows “along the lines of what we saw on the October 7”.
On October 7 last year, Hamas terrorists stormed the southern Israel border and slaughtered some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, kidnapping 250 more.
Out of some 115 hostages who still remain trapped in Gaza, 41 of them have been confirmed dead by Israeli authorities.
Almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed throughout the war, according to the health ministry and UN body in the Hamas-run enclave.
Most of the Gaza Strip has also been destroyed, displacing some two million people from their homes.
Retired officer Colonel Kemp, who commanded forces in Afghanistan, also said Israel may carry out a preemptive strike on Iran to prevent another attack on its own soil.
“It’s probably likely to happen,” he said, “as soon as Israel receives intelligence that Iran is about to strike”.
“If there is an attack, there’s going to be a counterattack by Israel as well. It’s not going to end there,” he added.
LEBANON ‘CRYING OUT FOR HELP’
Avi, a former Israeli intelligence official, said civilians in Lebanon are “crying out” to be saved from living under Hezbollah rule.
He told The Sun: “Lebanon doesn’t want to be part of this war, you hear constantly, day in, day out, Lebanese politicians, Lebanese journalists.
“They are expressing a very clear message.
“They are saying, they are actually turning to the world, and they are saying… ‘Help us! Save us! We are occupied by Iran and Hezbollah’.
“They are saying openly and overtly, in many different ways, ‘we don’t want to be dragged to this war. This is not our war’.”
Avi, who is a fellow for the Eisenhower Institute, claimed the people of Lebanon are “terrorised by Hezbollah”.
The Iranian-backed terror group, he said, “kidnapped Lebanon from within”.
But Avi warned that the ideology behind Iranian-backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah can never die.
He told The Sun: “Hamas is not going to disappear. Hezbollah is not going to disappear.
“The radical ideologies they come from are not going to disappear.”
“Violence has been always a part and parcel of this region,” he added.
“We’ll see continuation of turbulence, we’ll see the continuation of violence.
“Peace is not so much a relevant term in the Middle East mindset.
“It’s more about sustainable arrangements of calmness that could be sustained for as much time as possible.
“Unfortunately, the way they are maintained is through violence in most cases.”
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COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Tony Schiena, former South African spy and CEO of global defence intelligence company MOSAIC, told The Sun conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is bound to escalate.
“From Hezbollah we’re definitely going to see retaliation”, the security pro said.
Tony, who exposed ISIS crimes in Iraq, warned: “This could escalate to a much bigger thing which at the moment America and its allies are obviously trying to de-escalate as much as possible.”
Civilians in Lebanon, he explains, will likely be “collateral damage” of the new front between Israel and Lebanon.
And tensions throughout the region “can’t de-escalate” because of the “ideological reasons” spurring on groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
‘PEACE DOESN’T EXIST’
Colonel de Bretton-Gordon said civilians always end up paying the cost of war like what we are seeing in the Middle East.
He explained that Iranian proxy groups like Hezbollah are spurred on by constant messaging from Tehran about wiping out Israel entirely.
“When [Iran] they’re fuelling this with extreme terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis, and let’s not forget also the Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria, it is very difficult to see an end to this,” he said.
And in the hot bed of Middle East chaos, civilians will pay the cost of Iran’s war with Israel.
Hamish told us: “In this sort of conflict, civilians are always the casualties. They’re not the ones who have helmets and body armour and all the rest.
“When you are attacking people in towns and villages, which are 99 per cent populated by civilians, there will be casualties.”
People in Lebanon and Gaza are “non combatants brought into a combative environment”, and they “die in greater numbers than anybody else”, Hamish said.
He added: “Outright peace is probably a nirvana that doesn’t exist.”
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Why have tensions in the Middle East suddenly spiked?
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
After almost 10 months of war in Gaza, tensions have hit an all new high following a series of deadly strikes and high-profile assassinations by Israel in late July and early August.
On Saturday July 27, a rocket strike fired from southern Lebanon hit a football pitch in Golan Heights – a Druze village occupied by Israel – killing 12 young people including children.
Israel and the US both said Hezbollah, the largest of Iran’s terror proxy groups, operating out of Lebanon, were responsible for the deadly strike.
On Monday July 28, the IDF dropped an airstrike on an area of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, killing Hezbollah’s most senior military commander Fuad Shukr.
Less than two days later, at around 2am on Wednesday July 30, Israel killed Hamas’ top political leader Ismail Haniyeh as he slept in Iran’s capital Tehran.
Israel has yet to explicitly claim responsibility for the hit, but after vowing to take out all of Hamas last year, they are widely believed to be behind it.
US officials have also said they suspect Israel of being behind the assassination.
On the morning of Thursday August 1 morning the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) announced that a strike on Khan Younis, southern Gaza, had killed Mohammed Deif on July 13.
Dief had worked as head of Hamas’ ruthless military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, since 2002.
It marked another major loss for Iran’s terror proxy groups in the region.
Early reports this week suggested Ismail Haniyeh was taken out in a precision strike, when a rocket was fired from a drone outside his window and detonated inside the room.
Then an investigation by the New York Times suggested a bomb had been planted in his room at the military-run compound where he was staying and detonated remotely.
Unnamed Iranian officials also shared the explosive theory with The Telegraph, further confusing the murky details around Haniyeh’s death.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), concluded its investigation into the humiliating security breach on Saturday August 1 and said he died after a “short-range projectile” was fired from outside the building.
A statement shared on Iranian state TV said a 7kg rocket warhead was used in the attack.
Iran and its proxy groups; Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen all vowed to seek revenge on Israel over the assassination of Haniyeh.
Then, on the night of Saturday August 3, Hezbollah fired some 30 rockets from Lebanon towards Galilee in northern Israel.
Tel Aviv’s impressive Iron Dome Defence system launched into action, destroying “most” of the missiles and no one was hurt.
But the UK, US and France have all urged their citizens to evacuate from Lebanon as fears of a wider war breaking out in the region continue to spiral.
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