Two Israeli military units concluded exercises in the northern part of their country on Thursday, with local media reporting that more combat forces are being repositioned near the Lebanese border in response to Hezbollah’s eight-month-long campaign of terror against the region.
This week, the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade and the Golani Brigade’s 12th Battalion announced that they successfully finished a training schedule that included maneuvering in the difficult and sometimes mountainous terrain that lies in southern Lebanon.
The deployments finished one day after the IDF’s top general, Herzi Halevi, visited the region to meet with local commanders.
The preparations come as earlier this month, the heads of Israel’s Northern Command and Operations Directorate approved plans for a direct incursion against the Tehran-backed terrorists, following a division-level invasion simulation in May.
In response to these measures, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has maintained that his fighters are ready to respond to any foray into the territory that he controls and that they will engage the IDF “without constraints, rules, or limits.”
Hezbollah’s almost daily bombardments, supplied with munitions from the Islamic Republic, have forced the government to evacuate 60,000 from the area’s Druze and Jewish communities, divert resources away from their efforts against Hamas in Gaza, and deal with a chronic wildfire problem due to blast-ignitions exasperated by the dry summer weather.
In addition to Jerusalem's forced management of the crisis, at least 11 civilians and 15 soldiers have been killed by the constant barrages of anti-tank missiles, attack drones, and Katyusha rockets.
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