The United States warned Israel on Wednesday against any attacks in <a href="http://www.time.news/france-calls-for-immediate-and-lasting-truce-in-the-gaza-strip/" title="France calls for “immediate and lasting truce” in the Gaza Strip“>Lebanon that are “similar” to what happened in the Gaza Strip, at a time when the Israeli army promised to fight “without relief” Hezbollah.
The day before, Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Gaza could suffer the same “destruction and suffering” and called on the Lebanese to “liberate their country” from Hezbollah, an Islamist movement linked to the Iran.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been leading destructive attacks on Palestinian territory, in response to the attack of the Islamic movement Hamas on Israeli soil. The war recently spread to Lebanon and has been accompanied by an escalation between Israel and Iran, which supports Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas.
“I say very clearly that there should not be any military action in Lebanon that is similar to Gaza and has a similar outcome to Gaza,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Although Israel announced that it was expanding its ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone on Wednesday with American President Joe Biden, to discuss in particular Israel’s plan to strike from Iran, as response to the missile attack launched by Tehran on October 1. .
The interview, attended by American Vice President Kamala Harris, a candidate for the White House, is the first in almost two months between the two leaders, whose relationship is tense.
According to the report published by the White House, Joe Biden asked Benjamin Netanyahu to “minimize the impact on civilians” in Lebanon, especially in Beirut, and to “assert Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah.”
This press release does not give details of the expected response to the Iranian missile attack but emphasizes that the American president and the Israeli Prime Minister “have agreed to remain in close contact in the coming days, directly and through their advisory teams at the national security. .
Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, promised that his country’s response would be “lethal, precise and surprising.”
“Hit hard”
After weakening Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has moved the front of the war towards Lebanon since mid-September.
Israel seeks to drive Hezbollah away from the border areas in southern Lebanon and stop its rocket fire so that around 60,000 displaced residents can return to northern Israel.
After a massive air campaign launched on September 23 against Hezbollah strongholds, Israel has been leading ground attacks in southern Lebanon since September 30, extended this week to coastal areas in the southwest of the country.
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah hard, without giving them the least relief or the least opportunity to recover”, after the “significant damage” it suffered, the Israeli chief of staff announced on Wednesday, General Herzi Halevi.
On Wednesday, a man and a woman were killed by rocket fire in Kiryat Shmona, a town in northern Israel located two kilometers from the Lebanese border, according to Israel’s emergency services.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on towns and military targets in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, and claimed to have repelled Israeli incursions twice at dawn.
Aerial bombardment continues in particular on the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of Hezbollah’s strongholds, targeted on Wednesday evening by a new strike.
According to the Lebanese authorities, the bombing left four dead in the Chouf region, south of Beirut, which had been relatively safe until now, and the army claimed to have destroyed “100 Hezbollah terrorist targets” in 24 hours. clock.
Since October 2023 and the start of cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including nearly 1,200 since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
The coordinator of the humanitarian branch of the UN, assigned to Lebanon, Imran Riza, indicated in New York that the country was facing “one of the deadliest periods” in its history. He estimated the number of internally displaced people in Lebanon at 600,000, more than half of whom are children.
Syria’s official agency also reported Israeli airstrikes early Thursday on a car factory and a “military site” in the center of the country, which it said did not cause any casualties. On Wednesday, the Israeli army announced that it had killed a member of Hezbollah in a previous strike in Syria.
“God without end”
In the Gaza Strip, intense bombing targeted the Jabalia sector in the north on Wednesday, according to the Civil Defense, surrounded for several days by the army that asked its inhabitants to evacuate, claiming that Hamas wanted to rebuild its capacity.
According to the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, “at least 400,000 people are trapped in this sector”. “Northern Gaza: an endless hell,” he said on X.
Unanimously, the UN Security Council, including the United States, warned Israel on Wednesday against passing a law that would prevent this vital agency from deploying humanitarian aid to Gaza, but which accuses Israel of employing “terrorists”.
The war reduced entire sectors of the small besieged territory to rubble and displaced almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants.
At least 42,010 Palestinians, the majority civilians, were killed in the Israeli attack in Gaza, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas government, which is considered reliable by the UN.
On the Israeli side, as a result of the attack on October 7, 2023, 206 people were lost, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza Strip.