US, Israel seek to resolve arms dispute as focus shifts to looming conflict with Hezbollah

The United States and Israel have taken steps to resolve some of the issues hampering U.S. arms shipments to the Jewish state, but at least one bomb shipment remains blocked as the world's attention increasingly shifts from Gaza to a potential conflict between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant arrived in Washington this week to meet with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about the war in ongoing between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, escalating tensions with Hezbollah and the potential resumption of all planned arms transfers to the Jewish state.

U.S. arms shipments to Israel have slowed in recent months as international scrutiny of the Jewish state’s war in Gaza has intensified. The Biden administration suspended a 2,000-pound bomb shipment to Israel in an attempt to discourage the country from conducting large-scale military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a move Israel says is necessary to complete the dismantling of Hamas’s remaining battalions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further complicated matters after releasing a video publicly accusing the Biden administration of withholding arms deliveries and saying Blinken had promised him that Washington would resolve the problem. The video angered the White House, putting a brake on ongoing negotiations with Israel to resume arms transfers. The video also sparked a feud between Netanyahu and Gallant, with the defense minister's advisers claiming the prime minister released the video to sabotage Gallant's upcoming meeting with U.S. officials.

Resumption of arms shipments could prove crucial for Israel as it prepares to step up military operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is an Islamist terrorist organization supported by Iran.

Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Hezbollah terrorists have fired rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon daily, prompting Israeli forces to retaliate. Tensions are escalating between the two camps, fueling fears that the conflict in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas in southern Israel, could escalate into a regional conflict.

More than 80,000 Israelis have evacuated northern Israel and have been unable to return home. The majority of them have spent the past eight months in hotels in safer areas of the country.

During his visit to Washington, Mr. Gallant warned on Wednesday that the Jewish state was ready to return Lebanon “to the Stone Age” if it did not stop its attacks.

“We don’t want war, but we are preparing for all scenarios,” Gallant told reporters. “Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict considerable damage on Lebanon if a war is started. »

The Biden administration has sought to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, hoping not to see the conflict escalate into a full-scale war. Austin met with Gallant on Tuesday to discuss how to “de-escalate tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border.” The US defense chief warned that escalating provocations against Israel could ““They are threatening to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that neither of them wants, and such a war would be catastrophic for Lebanon and devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians.”

Hezbollah exercises considerable political and military influence through Hezbollah.