Hezbollah and Iran both seriously weighed preemptive strikes on Israel prior to the current war, defense sources said on Monday.
It has been reported before that Israel was concerned that Iran might try a preemptive strike to catch the Jewish state by surprise, but Monday was the first time that any Israeli sources had claimed a potential preemptive strike possibility by Hezbollah prior to this war.
Regarding Hezbollah, defense sources said that Hezbollah even ordered 1,000 Radwan special forces to head south in the direction of Israel and IDF forces.
According to defense sources, Hezbollah found it unacceptable how much the IDF was striking them since the fall 2024 ceasefire, even if the Israeli military's strikes were far less than during the fall of 2024 or than they are now.
Defense sources hedged on the question of whether Hezbollah intended to try to invade northern Israel, instead appearing to imply that the attack would have focused with ground forces on IDF troops, along with rocket fire on a mix of IDF forces and northern Israeli border villages.
US-Israel Iran strikes threw off Hezbollah
Pressed about why it took over two days for Hezbollah to join the current conflict after Israel and the US were already heavily bombing Iran if it had been revving up for a preemptive strike anyway, defense sources responded that the IDF and American attacks on the Islamic Republic threw off Hezbollah's calculations.
In other words, once they lost the element of surprise, Iran was up against the wall, and Washington was involved; it took some time for Hezbollah to reevaluate how and when it would fight as a latecomer to the conflict.
Despite the argument by defense sources, it remains unclear whether Hezbollah would have, in fact, struck Israel first had Jerusalem not initiated its war on Iran, or whether Hezbollah's potential preemptive strike would have remained in the realm of theory.