The war on Gaza has not proceeded the way the Netanyahoo government had planned. Fierce resistance continues and Israeli Occupation Forces are taking relatively high losses.
Haaretz is reporting (archived) that the military leadership does not agree with the government plans:
A large, almost unbridgeable disparity exists between the understanding that the Israel Defense Forces are already in the midst of deployment for the third stage of the war in Gaza, and what the political decision makers are projecting outwardly.
Five brigades, mostly consisting of reservists, have been pulled from Gaza and will be demobilized. But the military expects the war to continue throughout the year if on a lower level.
The Israeli government plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip. It has held talks with Congo and other African countries to take in the involuntary refugees. Bribes will flow and some governments will agree to take in whoever comes.
Pushing Palestinians out by making all living in Gaza unbearable is the underlying tactic to achieve that goal.
The U.S. government is publicly opposed to those plans but does nothing to prevent their realization.
Netanyahoo has recognized that a victory in Gaza, and the dismantling of all of Hamas, is not really possible. But he needs a victory to keep a chance to survive in the government and to not go to jail for the various cases of taking bribes.
He attempts to achieve this by expanding the war into Lebanon. Several border provocations have so far not incited Hezbullah to respond with a larger war.
But yesterday an Israeli drone assassinated a leader of the Palestinian Hamas in Beirut:
The Deputy Chief of the Political Bureau of the Hamas movement, Saleh al-Arouri, was martyred on Tuesday evening, as a result of an attack that targeted the Southern Suburb of Beirut.
Lebanon's National News Agency reported that "an Israeli drone targeted an office of the Hamas movement in Msharafieh" while "ambulances reached the area to transport casualties."
Al Mayadeen's correspondent reported that an Israeli drone targeted the building with three missiles, resulting in the martyrdom of six individuals.
Saleh al-Arouri had been involved in hostage negotiations in Qatar with Israel.
In August last year Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah had publicly announced that any Israeli assassination in Lebanon, no matter of whom, would be responded to in kind. He can not let yesterday's event pass without responding. Israel would otherwise feel free to assassinate more and more people in Lebanon.
Today, at 16:00 UTC, Nasrallah is expected to give a speech. This was originally planned as a commemoration of the assassination in 2020 of the Iranian General Qassam Soleimani and the Iraqi resistance leader Abu Mahdi al Muhandis by U.S. forces. PressTV will have live coverage of the speech. Nasrallah will surely include a response to yesterday's attack.
Hizbullah must respond carefully to not give Netanyahoo a reason for a wider attack on Lebanon. On the other side the response must be strong enough and soon enough to give Netanyahoo some trouble.
But what kind of operation he will chose to do is yet unknown. I for one expect an unexpected but serious surprise in a direction that Israel has not foreseen.