Israeli Generals Turn Against Netanyahu Over Lebanon 'Smokescreen'

(MENAFN) Senior officers within the Israeli military have leveled sharp accusations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, charging that he is deliberately deflecting blame onto the armed forces for what they describe as underwhelming results in Lebanon and an incomplete reckoning with Iran, the Israel Hayom daily reported Sunday.

According to the officials, Netanyahu's weekend declaration that he had ordered the army to strike Hezbollah targets "with force" following persistent ceasefire violations amounted to little more than political theater — a calculated move to relieve mounting domestic pressure rather than any genuine shift in military strategy.

Senior commanders confirmed that the strikes carried out in the aftermath of Netanyahu's announcement were entirely routine, conducted under the same pre-existing rules of engagement, confined to southern Lebanon, and void of any meaningful escalation in scope or intensity.

The officials dismissed the prime minister's statement outright, labeling it a "smokescreen" and stressing that no new orders had been issued — that operations on the ground were proceeding precisely as they had before the announcement.

Their broader frustration centers on what they characterize as Netanyahu's effort to recast the military as the party responsible for failing to deliver the sweeping outcomes he had publicly promised — when in fact, they insist, the army has operated strictly within the boundaries defined by political leadership.

Those boundaries, the officials noted, are further constrained by directives tied to US President Donald Trump, who brokered the Lebanon ceasefire and subsequently extended it by an additional three weeks — effectively capping the scale of permissible Israeli military action.

Discontent is described as spreading across both the army and the broader security establishment, with officials voicing alarm that the prevailing pattern of restrained, limited military engagement leaves Israeli forces chronically vulnerable to renewed attacks, fails to deliver tangible security to communities in Israel's north, and affords Hezbollah the latitude to exploit both the ceasefire framework and the defensive posture of Israeli troops on the ground.

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