ISRAEL PERSPECTIVE

Israel receives the sequence as a demonstration that the war is not over. Haaretz headlines soberly "Israeli soldier killed by Hezbollah anti-tank missile strike in southern Lebanon" and names Captain Eitan Shmuel Lemberg, who fell in combat. Arutz Sheva amplifies by featuring an emotional piece on the outgoing Golani brigade commander "ordering the capture of Beaufort Castle" — an editorial choice that directly invokes the memory of the 1982 Lebanon war. The Israeli press then clearly splits: on the right, the symbolic recapture of Beaufort is celebrated as a return to military fundamentals; on the left, Haaretz publishes an editorial asking whether Lebanon could become "Netanyahu's political graveyard" for a second time — a reference to the Lebanese trap that sealed the end of his first term. The center-left daily also headlines that the Israeli government's policy "is chaos" and that a fresh Pew Research poll just showed that a majority of Americans now hold unfavorable views of Israel and Netanyahu. Arutz Sheva keeps the Pew survey out of frame and headlines instead on the IDF evacuation orders sent to central Gaza — a way to recall that two fronts are open simultaneously. The shared coverage restitutes one reality: the Hezbollah rejection did not surprise the general staff, who are already preparing for weeks of further fighting with no guaranteed American diplomatic backing. What nobody yet spells out is that the simultaneity of Beaufort and the Gaza evacuation orders is a test for the IDF: how many simultaneous fronts can the general staff hold before reservists begin refusing the call-up?