These attacks seem to be aimed at providing “guarantees” for the residents of the northern territories who were relocated when Hezbollah started hitting Israel in retaliation for the Gaza War, says Dr. Tamer Qarmout, associate professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
According to him, Tel Aviv wants “guarantees that anything similar to the attack of the October 7th launched by Hamas will not happen in the north, by creating this buffer zone.”
“So for them, this is the strategy of mindset that by creating this buffer zone, they will prevent any future attacks similar to the one that started from Gaza on October 7th, targeting the north of Israel and also trying to bring back the residents of the North and assure them that they will be safe,” he explains.
Qarmout warns, however, that it is unclear why Hezbollah would accept the creation of a buffer zone, not to mention that Israel “has no right whatsoever to breach the sovereignty of other countries by creating such zones.”
“Another thing is that now, with all this modern warfare, even if Israel manages to establish such a zone, there are no guarantees this could provide… any protection for the Israelis because Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets that can reach basically any corner of Israel,” he points out.
“The only thing to restore security on the northern borders of Israel is to immediately stop the war in Gaza, which is a key demand by Hezbollah,” Qarmout suggests, arguing that a diplomatic solution would work better than any buffer zone.