Israel ‘up to its neck, unprepared’ for two-front war against Iran, Hezbollah: Report

Iran and Hezbollah are launching daily joint rocket and missile barrages against Israel, while Yemen warns that its ‘fingers are on the trigger’  

News Desk - The Cradle

The Israeli military is “not prepared” to fight a two-front war against both Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported on 9 March.

The newspaper’s military correspondent Avi Ashkenazi described the Israeli army as a “relatively small army” with “limited power and resources.”

“It is not prepared to manage two fronts simultaneously with the power to drop thousands of munitions every day of war,” he added. 

The report goes on to say that the pace of Hezbollah’s rocket and drone attacks is increasing, targeting bases and outposts as well as cities and settlements across the north. 

The Israeli military is now “in a half-pregnancy phase,” while the air force is “up to its neck in attacks on Iran,” Maariv says, warning that the current Israeli army pace is not enough to “silence Hezbollah.”

Joint barrages launched in a coordinated fashion by Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic have been ongoing since the Lebanese resistance joined the war on 2 March. 

Sirens sound dozens of times throughout each day across the entirety of Israel, repeatedly forcing millions into shelters multiple times. 

Hezbollah said on Monday afternoon that it “launched a qualitative missile strike at 12:15 pm on Monday, 09/03/2026, against the Zayif air defense base in the occupied city of Haifa.”

The attack came as an Iranian missile strike on Tel Aviv killed two people. Since the start of the war, key US Army radars used to help track ballistic missiles were destroyed or damaged by Iranian attacks on Jordan and the Gulf. 

Meanwhile, in south Lebanon, Hezbollah has inflicted casualties on Israeli troops attempting a ground invasion. 

Footage released Sunday by the Lebanese resistance shows the killing of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah anti-tank fire. 

According to the Israeli Health Ministry, 1,929 injured Israelis have been evacuated to hospitals since the start of the war with Iran.

Commander of the Iranian army’s Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, Major General Ali Abdollahi, responded over the weekend to repeated US and Israeli media claims regarding Iran’s missile capacity. 

“The enemy has repeatedly claimed it knows the number of Iran’s missiles, but it should count them on the battlefield to realize that it knows nothing about Iran’s real capabilities,” the general said. 

The Maariv report comes as Israel is anticipating the potential eruption of a new front – Yemen. 

The Ansarallah movement has said that its “fingers are on the trigger, ready to respond at any moment should developments warrant it.”