Israel vows to target Hezbollah even if a temporary break is reached with Hamas | World News – Business Standard

Israel’s Defense Minister vowed Sunday to step up attacks on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah even if a ceasefire is reached with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israel throughout the Gaza war, has said it will halt its almost daily attacks on Israel if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said anyone who thinks a temporary ceasefire for Gaza will also apply to the northern front is “mistaken.”

“We will continue the fire, and we will do so independently of the South, until we achieve our objectives,” Gallant said. He said there is a simple goal: to push Hezbollah away from the Israeli border, either through a diplomatic agreement or by force.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after Hamas sparked the fighting in Gaza on October 7 with a deadly attack along Israel’s southern border from the Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have been displaced by the ongoing cycle. of rocket and rocket attacks from Hezbollah and Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech earlier this month that the group would adhere to a ceasefire in southern Lebanon if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza. But he said the attacks would resume and escalate if Israel continued to attack in Lebanon after an agreement with Hamas.

A Lebanese security official said on Sunday that five Hezbollah members were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on trucks in the Lebanon-Syria border area. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to share the information with journalists. Hezbollah announced that three of its fighters had been killed, but did not say where.

The Israeli military did not acknowledge the attacks on the Lebanon-Syria border, but announced that it had struck several locations in southern Lebanon in response to rocket launches and that it was targeting a terrorist cell in the city of Blida.

Gallant said Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah commanders have significantly weakened the group’s ability to attack Israel.

About 200 Hezbollah fighters and 35 civilians in Lebanon have been killed during nearly five months of daily low-level clashes between the Lebanese militant group and Israeli forces against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah. Nine soldiers and nine civilians have been killed in Hezbollah attacks in Israel.

Most of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has been confined to the area within a few kilometers on either side of the border.

Diplomats from the United States and European countries have presented a series of proposals in the hope of brokering an agreement that could curb the border dispute.

The ideas are mainly based on a Hezbollah withdrawal a few kilometers from the border, a strengthened presence of the Lebanese army in the border area, and negotiations on border points where Lebanon claims that Israel has occupied small parts of Lebanese territory since the withdrawal of his troops from the border region. rest of southern Lebanon in 2000.

Ultimately, the plans could lead to a demarcation of the land border between Lebanon and Israel, following the maritime border agreement reached in 2022.

The latest of these proposals, put forward by France, would see Hezbollah withdraw its forces 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, said a Lebanese government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to handle the negotiations. discuss.

Lebanon is still studying the proposal, and Hezbollah officials have indicated a willingness to consider it, but both the government and Hezbollah officials have said there would be no agreement on the border until a ceasefire in Gaza is coming.

First print: February 26, 2024 | 7:14 am IST