Attention focuses on Netanyahu’s plans for Hezbollah, the end of the next battle in Gaza: untouched information

“We will be able to move part of our forces north,” he said, depicting sick soldiers in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu neatly stopped short of announcing an invasion of Lebanon, a development that could potentially have resulted in major Israeli and Lebanese losses, and left the door open to a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah.

Any diplomatic solution in Gaza is more uncertain, partly because Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition would likely be weakened if Israel halted the fighting in Gaza and removed Hamas from power unnecessarily.

Nonetheless, the prime minister appeared to signal that Israel, which is close to completing its Stream Army operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, would not try to attack the prime agricultural lands in the central Gaza cities that form the core of the region. There is a branch. The Israeli army has not carried out such attacks.

While Israeli leaders have said since January that they are moving toward a low-intensity war, the end of the Rafah operation could allow the crowning glory of that process.

Mr Netanyahu’s comments, and the latest comments by Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who was in Washington on Monday, indicated that the focus of Israel’s political discourse and strategic planning is shifting to its northern border with Lebanon.

In a comment on Monday, Mr Gallant’s workplace said he had discussed with US officials “the transition to ‘Phase C’ in Gaza and its impact on the region, including Lebanon and other regions.”

At the beginning of the war, Mr. Gallant explained a three-phase war plan that included intense air strikes against Hamas targets and infrastructure; a length of agricultural land operations towards “eliminating areas of resistance”; and a third section, or Section C, which could create “a new security reality for Israeli citizens”.

Since October, Israel has been waging low-level fighting with Hezbollah, which has displaced thousands of civilians on all sides of the border. However the fighting has been eclipsed by the larger conflict in Gaza.

The change in rhetoric over the weekend could be a harbinger of a significant escalation between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israeli officials had been blackmailing for months that they would invade Lebanon if Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed force that dominates southern Lebanon, did not withdraw its forces from its border. Hezbollah has also threatened to attack Israel.

However a reduction in fighting in Gaza could eventually develop dimensions to reduce hostilities on the Lebanese border. Hezbollah joined the fight with Hamas as a team in October, and its management has indicated that it would begin its marketing campaign if the conflict in Gaza subsides.

Here are four ways a change in Israel’s stance in Gaza could have an impact.

1. Raids in Gaza, even if small

As the Israeli campaign in Rafah ends in the coming weeks, the army is expected to focus on hostage-rescue operations around the Gaza Strip, such as the one that rescued four Israelis and killed several Palestinians in early June .

Army officials also say they will continue conducting brief raids into areas they captured in previous phases of the war, to prevent Hamas’ opponents from gaining ground in those boxes.

Templates for that operation include Israel’s withdrawal of the al-Shifa sanatorium in Gaza City in March, four months after the first raid, or its three-week operation in May in Jabaliya, which Israeli forces first captured in November. Had taken. ,

2. A Gaza energy vacuum

Through withdrawal from much of Gaza without handing over power to supplementary Palestinian control, Israel could essentially allow Hamas leaders to secure their dominance over the devastated territory, at least for now.

It is possible that if it attacked Gaza regularly, Israeli forces could prevent Hamas from returning to its former power – although this could exacerbate an influence void with Hamas vying for greater clan and gang influence. Let’s compete. That void will make it even more difficult to rebuild Gaza, deliver backup, and de-escalate civil conflict.

Israel is expected to maintain control of Gaza’s border with Egypt to prevent smuggling of arms there. It is also anticipated that it will move to capture a strip of land that separates northern and southern Gaza, with sovereign movements fighting between the two boxes.

3. Conflict, or de-escalation, with Hezbollah

By transferring additional troops to its northern border, Israel’s military could be better placed to invade Lebanon and draw Hezbollah’s opponents away from the Israeli border.

However, the accumulation of troops there could prompt additional rocket attacks from Hezbollah, increasing the possibility of a miscalculation that would escalate into an all-out conflict. The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, later warned that the mob could invade Israel, and the possibility of an escalation seemed closer than it had been in months.

On the same date, Israel’s announcement that it is advancing into an unoccupied area in Gaza could also serve as a reference for reducing tensions. Much less fighting in Gaza could be frustrating for Hezbollah. In February, Mr Nasrallah said his staff would refuse to fire “when the firing in Gaza stops”.

A period of relative calm on the Lebanon border could also direct displaced Israelis to return home. This would in turn put pressure on the Israeli government to take more preemptive action against Hezbollah. One of the main reasons Israeli leaders invaded Lebanon was to create conditions that would allow displaced Israelis to return home.

4. Endured tension with Biden management

By announcing the Gaza drawdown, Mr. Netanyahu reduced one source of friction with President Biden, but maintained others.

Mr. Biden has criticized Israel’s conflict habits, as well as how his administration continues to pump capital into Israel and provide it with a handout. A less destructive war in Gaza would provide fewer opportunities for debate with Washington over Israeli military strategy.

However, Mr Netanyahu’s refusal to articulate a vague plan for Gaza’s post-war governance leaves ample options for confrontation with Washington, in addition to the lingering risk of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Biden leadership wants the fighting with Hezbollah to end, and has pressed Mr. Netanyahu for months to empower a complementary Palestinian leadership in Gaza. Mr Netanyahu, however, has kept the Gaza problem under wraps amid pressure from his right-wing coalition partners to annex and resettle the territory alongside the Israelis.