Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon: what now?

The Times of Malta warns against a repetition of history:

“In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in the middle of the latter's civil war, imposing a siege on the capital Beirut. ... Not only did the ground invasion result in the death of thousands of civilians, the occupation of Lebanon plunged an already fragile nation into lasting political and economic chaos and led to the birth of Hezbollah, the very group that threatens northern Israel today. ... In 1982, such an operation resulted only in catastrophic results for all concerned – and set in place the conditions for decades of hostilities across the Lebanon-Israel border. A similar offensive today would almost certainly have similar results.”

Not even the US can prevent Israel from further escalating the war, writes Público:

“The Netanyahu government does whatever it pleases, it has a strategy that it doesn't want to give up, and the US has taken on this disheartening role: for months it has been appealing to common sense, and sometimes it seems as if it is being listened to. ... But it's not. What has happened in the last few days is paradigmatic ... It's clear that an escalation in the region is in nobody's interest, that it's dangerous, that a ceasefire and serious negotiations are needed. That Israel doesn't seem interested in ending the escalation. And that the US's strategy of appeals without consequences won't achieve anything.”

Israel's plans already go beyond Lebanon, La Repubblica is convinced:

“Two days after the carnage in the kibbutzim, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel's response to the Hamas attack would 'reshape the Middle East'. A year later, these words are being reread as the key to the next phase of the war. ... Galvanised by the killing of the Hezbollah leader and the resulting restoration of the domestic political consensus, Netanyahu made a surprise address to the Iranian people yesterday: 'There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. When Iran is finally free, and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think, everything will be different.'”

After the assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has reportedly been moved to a safe place. For T24, this would be an embarrassing admission by Iran, because

“if it's true, then Iran doesn't feel safe from Israel even in its own territory. We know that even before the assassination of Haniyeh Israel carried out operations on Iranian territory, killing a number of people who were allegedly working on the nuclear weapons project. Isn't the news that the Ayatollah has been 'transferred to a secure location' an admission that parts of Iran are not safe from an Israeli attack?”

Europe must offer protection to Middle East war refugees, the taz demands:

“This also applies to the almost one million registered Syrian refugees and the nearly half a million Palestinian refugees who have sought shelter in Lebanon, with its roughly six million inhabitants. The country is on the verge of collapse. Despite the rise of the far right, which we now see in Austria too, Europe must not hesitate. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine the EU immediately took in millions of Ukrainians as war refugees. Rightly so! Now it must do the same in the case of Lebanon.”