The Israeli military is drawing up plans to escalate the conflict with the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Hamas.

“Today we approved various plans for the future” and “we must be ready to attack if necessary” in Lebanon, said the chief of the Israeli National Defense General Staff, Herchi Halevi, during a visit to a command post in the northern city of Safed on Wednesday. Chahal, the Israeli military, is “at a very high level of readiness,” he added.

Israeli and Hezbollah forces have been exchanging fire on the border since October 8, the day after the Israel/Hamas war broke out.

Yesterday the armed wing of the Shiite movement fired rockets at the border town of Kiryat Shimona, damaging buildings, with no injuries reported. Earlier, three people—a Hezbollah fighter and two members of his family—were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

After the war broke out in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli authorities moved thousands of residents of northern Israel to other areas of the country, for security reasons.

The conflicts on the borders of the two states are characterized as the most serious since the so-called Second Lebanon War (2006).

They are limited to the border area, but Israel has also struck deeper, up to 20 kilometers, recently.

They have killed nearly 160 people on the Lebanese side of the border, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also civilians, including journalists. On the Israeli side, there is talk of 13 dead, including 9 military personnel.