Yair Lapid says military ‘is stretched to the limit and beyond’ as Israeli forces wage attacks on Iran and Lebanon.

Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid has warned that the war with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon is taking too high a toll and accused the government of steering the country towards a “security disaster”.

The military “is stretched to the limit and beyond”, Lapid said late on Thursday in a video address, echoing a warning delivered a day earlier by military chief Eyal Zamir, according to leaked remarks from a security cabinet meeting.

“The government is sending the army into a multi-front war without a strategy, without the necessary means, and with far too few soldiers,” said Lapid, who is seen as a centrist figure in Israeli politics.

He has frequently criticised the government’s handling of war while still supporting Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere. Last month, he said he agreed with Israeli expansion as far as Iraq, and that his territorial takeover views for Israel are based on Zionist and biblical foundations.

Buffer zone in Lebanon

Military spokesman Effie Defrin, in a televised address on Thursday, said “more combat soldiers are needed” to establish a “defensive” buffer zone in Lebanon.

Israel said this week its military would take control of south Lebanon up to the Litani River, about 30km (19 miles) from the border. Lebanon said it would complain to the United Nations Security Council over Israeli attacks as a threat to its “sovereignty”.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah, said for many military analysts and politicians, especially in the Israeli opposition, the plan to create a buffer zone could be “very costly”.

“Yesterday, we saw that two Israeli soldiers were killed inside southern Lebanon as the battle with Hezbollah continues, and one civilian was killed in Israel as a result of an antitank missile fired from Lebanon,” Ibrahim added.

“We are looking at a situation in which many Israelis feel that the strategy being employed by the current government and military leadership is not beneficial.”

The Israeli army has been pounding Lebanon with air attacks since a cross-border attack by Hezbollah on March 2, in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and has launched a ground offensive in the southern parts.

Before that, Hezbollah had not attacked Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire, despite near-daily Israeli breaches of the deal. The armed group on Friday said its fighters had launched rockets at northern Israel, where air raid sirens prompted residents to take shelter.

United States-Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28 have killed almost 2,000 people. In Israel, at least 19 people have been killed and more than 5,229 wounded in Iranian attacks.

Moreover, Israeli forces continue their near-daily attacks in the Gaza Strip. Despite the October 2025 “ceasefire”, Israel has continued to attack the war-devastated coastal enclave, killing more than 700 Palestinians since then while maintaining curbs on the entry of aid and other goods into Gaza.