Hezbollah has been shelling Israel daily ever since October 7, 2023, but an attack Sunday evening finally hit home. Amid a barrage of over 100 missiles, a Hezbollah drone found its mark at a military base near Haifa, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens of people, including civilians. While Israeli air defenses successfully intercepted rockets and other missiles fired by Hezbollah, the drone “infiltrated without warning,” according to Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

This result is tragic, but not entirely unexpected. A Hezbollah strike that inflicted military casualties on Israel was bound to happen eventually (a Hezbollah rocket inflicted civilian casualties in July when it killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field). Hezbollah has fired dozens to hundreds of missiles at Israel every day for a year. If Israel’s missile defense system were 99% successful, Hezbollah would have more 200 successful missile strikes so far (Israel sometimes ignores missiles on a trajectory to fall harmlessly, but their success record is clearly better than 99%).

This foreseeable outcome is why Israel has been unwilling to wage a purely defensive war, as the Biden administration foolishly demanded. If Israel only ever played defense, they could only ever expect to take casualties, without inflicting casualties on the enemy.

War is tragic, but sometimes it is necessary. Without the Israeli airstrikes or ground invasion, perhaps Hezbollah would not have launched the innovative drone attack that killed four soldiers. But, without the Israel offensive in the north, many innocent civilians may have died.

When Israel invaded, they “found tons of evidence” that “thousands of Hezbollah fights were meant to go through tunnels” in an operation Hezbollah called “the conquest of Galilee,” CBN News Middle East bureau chief Chris Mitchell said on “Washington Watch.” Hezbollah “had a plan to kidnap, kill, murder, [and] take over villages on the northern border [that was] much bigger than what happened on October 7^th,” and Israel is “continuing to find more munitions there in in southern Lebanon.”

A major objective in Israel’s ongoing invasion of Lebanon was to preempt this invasion. Another major objective is to destroy Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles, so that the jihadist militia is no longer able to launch attacks against Israel. By October 1, Israel estimated that it had destroyed about half of Hezbollah’s arsenal of missiles and rockets, which is estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 projectiles.

In contrast to Israel’s lionish posture, the Biden administration has meekly doubled down on its defense-only strategy. It recently sent Israel an advanced missile defense system with 100 U.S. troops to operate it. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) is intended to assist Israel in warding off future Iranian missile attacks.

While this gesture is better than nothing — and U.S. boots on the ground do reinforce America’s commitment — it also fails to grapple with how extensive the conflict has become.

Israel is fighting an active war against enemies in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Except for Iran, all its enemies are extremist terror militias directed by Iran, a regional power intent on destroying the state of Israel.

Iran’s involvement makes Hezbollah’s deployment of a successful drone strike against Israeli soldiers much more ominous. For the past two years, Iran has been producing kamikaze, explosive-laden drone with which it has armed Russia. The advent of these battlefield drones has revolutionized the war in Ukraine. They could also revolutionize the war with Israel if Iran is able to ship them to Lebanon.

Earlier this month, Iran itself launched a missile barrage against Israel for the second time this year. Every missile launched was effectively a declaration of war. Yet the Biden administration is still trying to place conditions on how Israel should respond.

“Biden and Netanyahu have actually spoken directly for the first time in several weeks, and they’re reportedly getting closer to agreement on how what Israel's response should be,” said Mitchell. “Reportedly, some sort of compensation package is being offered by the United States to Israel, and whether that includes armaments and or diplomatic support or exactly remains to be seen.”

In other words, the U.S. is considering paying Israel not to respond forcefully to the Iranian attack. The White House thinks it’s a kindergarten teacher on the playground, figuring out how to bribe kids to cover up an incident, so she doesn’t have to fill out an accident report before her performance review.

But this is not a playground; it is war. Israel is reportedly taking the deal seriously because they desperately need more ammunition from the U.S. to continue their fight. “The timing [is] just a few weeks away from the U.S. election, and perhaps Israel feels like this is maybe not the first and only opportunity they’ll have to strike Iran,” Mitchell suggested.

For Israel, the stakes of every decision in this war are much weightier than they are for the Biden White House. If they fail to destroy their enemies, civilian lives are at stake. As they strive to destroy their enemies, soldiers’ lives are at stake. If they surrender, their very existence is at stake. Making decisions about these weighty factors are rendered more complex by the political realities of negotiating with a U.S. ally that fundamentally misunderstands the situation on the ground. But Israel will continue fighting, and they will make the best decisions for their people and nation, whether the U.S. stands behind them or not.