Within a day after unleashing a devastating flurry of Monday airstrikes on Lebanon, Israeli ground forces have aggressively expanded the theater of operations inside Lebanon, violating a status quo by sending IDF ground troops across the "Yellow Line" which was established at the inception of the ceasefire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that Israel is "intensifying operations" in Lebanon by taking strategic positions deeper into the country with a wave of offensives north of the Litani River.
Officially, Tel Aviv is justifying the deep territorial grab as a "defensive" counter-measure against persistent Hezbollah drone strikes on occupation forces as well as communities in northern Israel.
"We are intensifying our operations in Lebanon. The IDF is operating with significant forces on the ground and taking control of strategically dominant positions. We are reinforcing the security buffer zone in order to protect the communities of northern Israel," Netanyahu has said in a fresh video released by his office.
"At the same time, we are carrying out a major national effort to advance creative and innovative solutions against explosive drones," he added, following a meeting with Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir in Tel Aviv.
The ground offensive comes as hawkish Israeli cabinet members openly lobby for a substantial escalation of the war and permanent occupations deeper into sovereign Lebanese territory.
The high-ranking command structure apparently operates under the assumption that it can successfully force a 12 km buffer zone between Hezbollah and the Blue Line border (the 75-mile demarcation line established by the United Nations in June 2000).
Local Israeli media outlets are already questioning the strategic utility of the entire operation, pointing out that Hezbollah’s tactical drone fleet is widely believed to possess an operational range in excess of 30 km.
Hezbollah has been having success especially with fiber-optic cable drones which are not to susceptible to jamming, hacking, or other electronic warfare interception measures.
All of these developments mean that the Washington-mediated ceasefire is effectively dead, and as Hezbollah's asymmetric warfare is likely to ramp up in response.
The last couple days have also seen whole communities in Shia strongholds of south Beirut flee suburbs which are likely to be targeted in new IDF airstrikes - as has been the pattern of the last several years.
These developments could negatively impact US-Iran efforts to hammer out a final peace deal, which has been grinding on slowly, though it appears that potential return to full-scale regional war is unlikely, for now.