As Lebanon braces for Israeli retaliation over the murder of at least 12 children on the Golan Heights, some northern Israelis are worried that, due to American pressure, the response might fail to end the Iran-directed assault on the Jewish state. 

A course of action has reportedly been approved Monday by the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister Netanyahu cut short a visit to America. The details, including the timing and scope of an Israel Defense Force operation, are being kept under wraps even as speculation grows in the region and the world.

Israelis living near the Lebanese border have been calling on the IDF to end the attacks Iran-backed Hezbollah has launched since October 8. To date Israel has refrained from turning its attention to the northern front and away from Gaza. Residents of Galilee and Golan Heights, including more than 60,000 Israelis who were forced out of their homes, are frustrated.

 “As far as I can see, there would be a reaction, rather than a change of the strategic equation” between  Israel and Hezbollah, the founder of a northern Israel-based Alma Research Center, Sarit Zehavi, tells the Sun. “I hope I’m wrong” this time. 

“These children are our children,” Mr. Netanyahu said Monday while visiting Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. The victims, aged 12 to 16, were killed Saturday at the Druze town when an Iranian-made Falaq-1 missile hit a soccer field. Israel cannot ignore the attack, Mr. Netanyahu said, adding that “the response will come, and it will be harsh.”   

The White House is warning Israel against reacting with too much force, and especially to avoid hitting Beirut. “We certainly don’t believe that as horrific as this attack was, that it needs to result in any kind of escalation,” the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said Monday.

Republicans are criticizing the administration’s calls for Israeli restraint. “As usual, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris put more pressure on Israel than Iranian-backed terrorists, only this time right after the slaughter of Israeli children playing ball at a park. Despicable,” Senator Cotton writes on X. 

Washington seems resigned to a forceful IDF attack. Yet, it fears a widened war that could drag in Hebollah’s top backer, the Islamic Republic of Iran, during the last stages of the presidential campaign. 

“Any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region,” Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said. Beirut officials are also threatening Israel not to hit the Hezbollah headquarters at the capital’s Dahia neighborhood. 

If the IDF attacks Dahia, Tel Aviv will be attacked, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, told reporters. “Lebanon has asked the U.S. to urge restraint by Israel,” he said, according to Reuters, adding that “the U.S. had asked Lebanon’s government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.”

The American-financed Lebanese Armed Force announced it would join Hezbollah if Israel attacks infrastructure installations in the country. Hezbollah declared it is mobilizing high-accuracy missiles, indicating their use on strategic Israeli targets if the war escalates.   

Even as America is attempting to mediate between its Mideast ally and the organization that tops its terrorist list, attacks persist. On Monday the Israeli navy intercepted a drone that breached Israel’s territorial waters, reportedly attempting to photograph the Karish gas field in the Mediterranean. 

In 2022, after Hezbollah threatened to attack that lucrative gas installation, a top Mideast adviser to Mr. Biden, Amos Hochstein, negotiated a deal that forced Israel to cede a separate Mediterranean gas rig to Lebanon. Mr. Hochstein has been shuttling between Beirut and Jerusalem since October 8 as well, hoping to get Hezbollah to remove its forces from the Israeli border. 

A 2006 United Nations Security Council writ, Resolution 1701, deployed a European-led force, Unifil, south of Lebanon’s Litani river. It was mandated to secure a weapon-free zone, yet it failed to deter heavily armed Hezbollah from entering the area and deploying on the border. 

American officials are reportedly telling Israelis that fear of a major IDF operation might now finally force Hezbollah to withdraw. Some Israeli commentators also say that a threat of a major military assault might be more effective than an actual IDF attack.  

Yet, such deterrence could quickly erode if Israel holds its fire for more than a few days. “There is now a window of international legitimacy for a military operation, which will close if Israel waits too long,” a Channel 11 security analyst, Roy Sharon, said. 

“The IDF has presented the cabinet with several military scenarios, and how Hezbollah would react to each of them,” Mr. Sharon added on the Israeli television channel. “The goal is to do something that hasn’t been done before, yet not to cross the threshold into an all-out war.” Where exactly that threshold lies, though, is difficult to determine, he noted.