Israeli Foreign Minister Katz said a decision on all-out war with Hezbollah would be taken soon, after Israeli military officers said late Tuesday they had approved plans to attack Lebanon.
The rhetoric escalated following the release of video footage of a Hezbollah spy drone flying over the northern city of Haifa, including footage of sensitive locations and civilian areas.
The broadcast of the video, widely interpreted as a veiled threat to Haifa, comes amid ongoing cross-border exchanges between the two countries, with northern Israel coming under the most intense Hezbollah attack of the war following Israel’s killing of a senior Hezbollah commander last week.
“We are approaching a decision moment to change the rules of the game vis-à-vis Hezbollah and Lebanon,” Katz said in a post on X after Hezbollah leader Said Hassan Nasrallah threatened to damage the port of Haifa, which is run by Chinese and Indian companies.
“If there is an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will suffer a huge blow,” he added.
The Israeli military later said “operational plans for an attack in Lebanon have been approved and reviewed and a decision has been taken to continuously strengthen the readiness of forces in the field.”
Katz’s comments came shortly after the IDF announced on Tuesday that it had approved the Lebanon battle plan. The IDF said its generals had carried out an assessment in which “the operational plan for the attack on Lebanon was approved,” which included “accelerated readiness of ground forces.”
The warning came hours after Hezbollah released nine minutes of drone footage it collected during reconnaissance flights over locations including the port and airport in Haifa, Israel’s main northern city.
Lebanese militants warned about the distribution of the footage on Telegram channels and elsewhere, urging viewers on several channels to “watch and analyze” the footage, calling it an “important scene.”
Hezbollah has been engaged in a firefight with Israeli forces for the past eight months as part of the Gaza war, sending surveillance and attack drones into Israel.
The decision to broadcast the footage, which includes images of Haifa and surrounding residential areas, military installations and port facilities, appears to be aimed not only at Israeli viewers but also at a wider international audience.
Said Hassan Nasrallah said in November that he had been flying surveillance drones over Haifa.
The footage appears to show parts of Rafael Defense’s factories, including the Iron Dome gun battery, rocket engine storage, David Slingshot facilities, and radar.
The latest exchange of threats between the two sides comes as the United States and France are working toward a negotiated resolution to hostilities along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.
The footage appears to highlight the growing difficulties Israel faces in dealing with the Hezbollah drone threat, which includes multiple incidents in which Israeli air defense systems have failed to detect incoming drones and a recent attack on Israeli military forces that left one person dead.
Experts say Hezbollah is using a combination of tactics to avoid drone detection, including flying low and using multiple channels to evade jamming technology.
About 150 drones were intercepted, while others reached their targets, and Israeli authorities revealed they had begun spending millions of shekels to counter the drone threat.
Reported plans to improve Israel’s air defenses include upgrading the Iron Dome system to deal with slow-flying unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as reintroducing retired conventional anti-aircraft weapons, including the Vulcan system.
The release of the footage appears to coincide with a visit to Lebanon by US special envoy Amos Hochstein, following meetings the previous day with senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Beirut, Hochstein called for an “urgent” de-escalation of cross-border firefights between Hezbollah and Israeli forces that have intensified since the start of the Gaza war.
“The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has gone on long enough,” the envoy said. “It is in everyone’s interest to resolve it quickly and diplomatically. It is achievable and it is urgent.”
Despite Hochstein’s visit to the region, there was little evidence of progress in efforts to ease tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border, and Israeli reports suggested he did not see much progress possible as long as the war in Gaza continued.
After several days of relative calm between Israel and Hezbollah over the weekend, hostilities flared up again on Tuesday following some of the heaviest attacks last week.
Lebanese state media reported that an Israeli drone struck a car on a highway north of the coastal city of Tyre. It was not immediately clear who was in the car or how many were killed or injured.
Last week, Hezbollah launched hundreds of drones and rockets, including more than 200 in a single day, prompting the Israeli military to strike Hezbollah positions in retaliation.
