Netanyahu, like every politician everywhere, is going to be first and foremost concerned with his own domestic electorate, and not the possible second- or third-order effects of going to war on the election in another country.

Netanyahu has to look at his overall picture.
He's still fighting in Gaza, but has consolidated some and no longer has the entirety of the IDF engaged. Up north, Hezbollah has been firing rockets left and right for months at Haifa and was reported thinking about doing a 10/7-style attack of their own (granted, that's much harder to do along their border with Lebanon).

Should the Israelis sit back and wait for Hezbollah/Iran to fire even more rockets? Or should they send a message that says 'We can touch you anytime we want' and take several key chess pieces off the board? They clearly chose the latter and by doing so have likely set Hezbollah's communications back by several months, if not years.

BTW. For those who want to be Leon Panetta and call what the Israelis did 'terrorism', then be prepared to stop supporting US drone strikes anywhere in the world for any reason.

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