A ground invasion of Lebanon is imminent, Israel Defense Forces (idf) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told soldiers on September 25. “The goal is a very clear goal, to return the residents to the north safely,” he said. “To do this, we are preparing the [ground] maneuver.”

If so, it will not be an easy fight. Hezbollah is far better armed than Hamas. They are “the world’s most heavily armed nonstate actor,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates Hezbollah has an army of 50,000 soldiers and an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, many of them precision-guided. In 2018, the United States government estimated Iran provides Hezbollah with over $700 million annually.

Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran. But it’s not the only one, and plenty of other jihadis are gearing up for the coming fight. According to sources speaking with Haaretz, roughly 40,000 soldiers, “mercenaries who came to Syria from a number of countries including Iraq, Yemen and Syria itself,” are mobilizing near Syria’s border with Israel, “waiting for [Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan] Nasrallah’s call to join the fighting.”

October 7 was Israel’s 1939 moment. In days, we could see Israel reach its D-Day moment.

The Lead-up

On October 7, Hamas, which controlled Gaza, invaded Israel. On October 8, Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah began bombarding northern Israel to show solidarity. Hezbollah hasn’t stopped its bombardment since, sending approximately 9,000 rockets since the war started. This has forced some 60,000 Israelis to evacuate their homes for months, effectively living as refugees in their own country.

Israel can’t take this for much longer. For months, Israel has threatened to escalate the skirmishes into an all-out invasion if Hezbollah doesn’t back off. Nasrallah has shown no signs of backing down.

Meanwhile repeated polling results suggest a majority of Jewish Israelis support a full-on ground invasion against Lebanon. Politicians—both from within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and his enemies—are publicly discussing with more and more confidence that a Lebanon invasion is on the table.

The Israeli government can’t keep making these kinds of threats without carrying them out. It can’t keep telling Israelis a war they want is coming and then not delivering. The threat of ground invasion could be real.

Beheading Hezbollah

To avoid Israeli interception, Nasrallah instructed Hezbollah membership to abandon communication equipment like smartphones and transition to low-tech alternatives like pagers. Pagers may be harder to hack, but when Israel heard what Hezbollah was doing, it intercepted the supply line and laced the pagers’ batteries with an explosive substance. In what one Hezbollah official called the group’s “biggest security breach” since October 7, thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers exploded on September 17, killing at least 12 and injuring over 2,700. Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani lost an eye.

The next day, it was the walkie-talkies’ turn. Exploding walkie-talkies killed 27 and injured at least 450 people.

This put Hezbollah in a panic. If something as seemingly mundane as an order of pagers can be infiltrated by Israel’s Mossad and used as a weapon, what else has Mossad booby trapped? But without using this kind of technology, how is Hezbollah supposed to communicate?

On September 20, Israel took its attacks a step further. That day, the top brass of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s special forces, held a meeting in Beirut, Lebanon. This included Ibrahim Aqil, the force’s leader. But Israel received advanced news of the meeting and hit their building with an airstrike. Ten of the Radwan Force’s leaders, including Aqil, died.

On September 21 and 25, Israel launched two preemptive strikes on storage locations for rockets and other projectiles (including in civilian homes), as well as the launch sites themselves. Israel fired almost 300 projectiles on September 21 alone. On September 25, Israel claimed to have hit over 2,000 targets. This included almost 70 intelligence centers. Some estimate this may have taken out up to 50 percent of Hezbollah’s arsenal.

Israel claims Hezbollah was preparing its own ground invasion of Israel similar to Hamas’s from last year, and that it is taking preventative measures. But the attacks also have beheaded Hezbollah’s leadership. The Radwan Force’s upper leadership is now gutted. Most of Hezbollah’s portable communications links have been disrupted and Hezbollah is paranoid to look for more.

Having Hezbollah headless and unable to communicate with each other is a pretty good way to sow operational chaos once open warfare starts. Soldiers who don’t know who to take orders from become easy targets.

What Does Iran Want?

We have minimal details so far as to how organized the 40,000 soldiers on the Syrian border are. A “senior defense official” speaking to Haaretz confirmed that “they’re not elite fighters.” But if they decide to attack Israel, this will open up a new front on Israel’s war in the north. Syria is also part of Iran’s proxy network. It is also the only one with the resources of an internationally recognized government.

Bashar Assad’s government is in a shaky place trying to avoid a flare-up of Syria’s never-ending civil war. Even after Israel conducted a daring raid on a weapons research center, he has avoided retaliation. Giving Israel an excuse to invade could disrupt Syria’s balance of power and lead to Assad’s ouster. But the militias’ actions could give him little choice but to enter the fray. Assad also sponsors Hezbollah, and Iran needs his territory to access Lebanon. Nasrallah and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei may force Assad’s hand.

Iran, however, has been dragging its feet. Axios reported September 24 that Hezbollah asked Iran to give a direct attack to Israel. Iran said this wasn’t the right time. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was in New York a few days ago to address the United Nations General Assembly. Attacking Israel now would have marginalized Iran.

This wasn’t a one-off of Iran turning down Hezbollah’s requests. Iran sent a delegation to Hezbollah in February. Iran told the group, per the Washington Post’s summary, “We are not keen on giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any reason to launch a wider war on Lebanon or anywhere else.”

Israel suggests any ground invasion would be to remove the immediate threat to Israel’s north. But if that is successful, what is to stop the idf from marching to Beirut and uprooting Nasrallah and all of Hezbollah for good? Iran may want to avoid this outcome: Losing Hezbollah means losing its biggest piece of leverage against Israel.

But Iran, in desperation, may also escalate its own involvement to try to save Hezbollah. And even if Hezbollah’s arsenal has been halved, 75,000 rockets and missiles is still enough to overwhelm Israel’s missile defense systems and turn Tel Aviv into a pile of rubble. Even if Israel wins, it could come at a high cost.

For the Middle East, the stakes have probably never been higher since October 7.

The Trumpet’s Perspective

The Middle East is an infamously capricious region. By the time you read this, the situation on the ground could be very different. However, there are general trends to watch that the Trumpet stands by. Bible prophecy informs the Trumpet’s expectations.

Psalm 83 is a prophecy of a group of Middle Eastern nations allying themselves with Germany and the European Union. Verse 6 mentions the Hagarenes, the ancestral people of modern Syria. Verse 7 mentions Gebal and Tyre, cities that still exist in Lebanon today. Our Trends article on the subject explains this in detail.

Daniel 11:40 shows a German-led Europe, under the prophetic name “the king of the north,” going to war with Iran and its allies (“the king of the south”). We have a Trends article explaining this prophecy as well.

Syria and Lebanon are both part of Iran’s bloc right now. Bible prophecy says they will ally with Germany against Iran. “Losing Syria will be devastating to Iran,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote for our August print issue. “It could very well be part of the reason for Iran to violently push at Europe. We don’t know all the details yet, but we need to watch this key Bible prophecy closely.”

Meanwhile, in a 2014 television program, Mr. Flurry predicted a future for Lebanon based on Psalm 83: “That means there’s going to be now a civil war, a bloody civil war in Lebanon for control of Lebanon, and you’re going to see Lebanon and the European power prevail in that battle.”

Daniel 11:41 mentions this fight will be over the “glorious land”—the land of Israel today. Iran won’t give up on its goal to annihilate Israel. But verses 42-43 reveal interesting details. It shows Iran’s allies against Europe. These include Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia.

All of these nations are to the south and west of Israel. That is not where Iran is focusing its attention right now. Libya and Ethiopia are dysfunctional messes, and Egypt is a partner of Israel. To this point, Iran’s main point of attack against Israel has been to the north—through Lebanon and Syria.

But by the time Psalm 83 and Daniel 11 are fulfilled, Iran will hardly have a presence in the north and shift its focus to Israel’s south.

One more detail is in Daniel 11:41: The king of the north “shall enter also into the glorious land.” “They ‘enter’ into the glorious land, or the Holy Land,” Mr. Flurry writes in The King of the South. “The Hebrew indicates this is a peaceful entry—not forced. The Jews appear to invite them in as peacekeepers. After war explodes in the Middle East, there will probably be a thunderous call for a peacekeeper in Jerusalem.”

Germany will be the power behind Lebanon and Syria by this point. The implication is that Israel no longer sees Lebanon and Syria as threats. Could this be because Israel itself has a hand in installing the countries’ new governments? Or because they believe a European ally has the situation there under control?

The next days and weeks could play out several ways. But Israel invading Lebanon or Syria would be a game changer for these two countries. It would mean the most serious threats to their regimes in years. Even if Israel doesn’t remove any leaders from power, it would give Hezbollah and Assad’s enemies—both inside and outside the country—the opportunity of a lifetime. And it could mean Iran losing huge chunks of its proxy empire. This loss would force Iran to rethink its strategy.

To learn more, request a free copy of The King of the South.