Is Israel planning for a ground invasion or a full-blown war?

An Israeli military official said Israel is focused on aerial operations and has no immediate plans for a ground operation.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with regulations, said more than 300 strikes on Lebanon's south and east on Monday are aimed at curbing Hezbollah's ability to launch more strikes into Israel.

What is Israel planning?

Israeli officials say they haven’t yet made an official decision to expand military operations against Hezbollah – and haven’t said publicly what those operations might be. This week, the head of Israel’s Northern Command was quoted in local media as advocating for a ground invasion of Lebanon.

A U.N.-brokered truce to their 2006 war called on Hezbollah to pull back 29 kilometers from the border, but it has refused to, accusing Israel of also failing to carry out some provisions. Israel is now demanding Hezbollah withdraw eight to 10 kilometers from the border – the range of Hezbollah’s anti-tank guided missiles.

Israel and Hezbollah’s 2006 war was a devastating monthlong fight triggered when Hezbollah fighters kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

In that war, Israel heavily bombarded southern Lebanon and Beirut and sent a ground invasion into the south. The strategy, later explained by Israeli commanders, was to inflict the maximum damage possible in towns and neighborhoods where Hezbollah operated to deter them from launching attacks.

But Israel could have a more ambitious and contentious goal this time: to seize a buffer zone in south Lebanon to push back Hezbollah fighters from the border. A fight to hold territory threatens a longer, even more destructive and destabilizing war – recalling Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon.

What would be the impact of a full-blown war?

The fear is that it could turn out even worse than the 2006 war, which was traumatic enough for both sides to serve as a deterrent ever since.

The fighting then killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and an estimated 1,100 Lebanese civilians and left large swaths of the south and even parts of Beirut in ruins. More than 120 Israeli soldiers were killed and hundreds wounded. Hezbollah missile fire on Israeli cities also killed dozens of civilians.

Now, Israel estimates that Hezbollah possesses about 150,000 rockets and missiles, some of which are precision-guided, putting the entire country within range of Hezbollah fire. Israel has beefed up air defenses, but it’s unclear whether it can defend against the intense barrages expected in a new war.

Israel has vowed it could turn all of southern Lebanon into a battle zone, saying Hezbollah has embedded rockets, weapons and forces along the border. And in the heightened rhetoric of the past months, Israeli politicians have spoken of inflicting the same damage in Lebanon that the military has wreaked in Gaza.