Hezbollah, Israel Cross-Attack as IDF Prepares for Potential Lebanon Invasion

JERUSALEM, Israel – As Hezbollah continues to launch deadly artillery and rocket strikes against Israel, the IDF is preparing for an offensive against Lebanon.

Israel struck back on Tuesday, hitting dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah is assaulting Israel almost daily, and leaders in the Israel Defense Forces say the IDF must be ready to cross the border.

"We’re more prepared for this than ever before, even for tonight, if needed, and we’ll continue and strengthen our preparations and our readiness moving forward," said Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, commanding officer of Israel's Northern Command.

Earlier this week, Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile that hit a home near Kfar Yuval, killing a 70-year-old woman and her son, who was part of the community's security team.

Due to the threat from Hezbollah, more than 100,000 Israelis evacuated their homes and communities in northern Israel. Many are living in hotels.

Daniella Porat Penso is one such resident. "We are much closer to the border than most of the kibbutzim (near) the Gaza Strip," she said. "it's scary, I must say. And we need to be sure that we're safe in order to come and live here again in our homes."

Former IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus told CBN News that Israel has been reacting to the attacks with restraint, but time is running out for diplomacy to avert a full-blown war.

"The time really is now for any such deal to come into effect," he asserted. "What Israel, I think, needs in order for Israeli civilians to go home to their homes is for a seven or ten-kilometer buffer zone to be created inside Lebanon, where there is simply no access for the worst Hezbollah terrorists to get close to the border."

Conricus says Hezbollah is much stronger than Hamas.

"We're talking about 130,000 rockets," he explained. "We're talking about bigger payloads and we're talking about much bigger range, including high-quality weapons that can strike specific locations in Israel, which Hamas does not possess, and many other weapons that Hezbollah has been provided by the Iranians."

Conricus continued, "The time really is now for any such deal to come into effect. What Israel, I think, needs in order for Israeli civilians to go home to their homes is for a seven or ten-kilometer buffer zone to be created inside Lebanon, where there is simply no access for the worst Hezbollah terrorists to get close to the border."

So far, UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force that has been in southern Lebanon since 1978, hasn't managed to keep the border safe. Israel needs to deal with Hezbollah's massive arsenal, according to many analysts, including Conricus.

But he added, "The most imminent threat is (Hezbollah) access to Israeli civilians across that 80-mile border that separates between Israel and Lebanon. And that is non-negotiable."

In Gaza, the IDF dismantled a strategic Hamas underground route stretching hundreds of meters and used by Hamas to transfer terrorists from the northern to the southern Gaza Strip.

Earlier, The New York Times reported that Hamas had between 350-435 miles of tunnels, which is significantly longer than Israel had estimated before the war.

The paper also quoted officials who say there were nearly 5,700 tunnel shafts leading to the underground tunnel network.

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