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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon on Tuesday that it could face destruction “like Gaza” as Israel intensifies its ground offensive against Hezbollah along the southern section of the Lebanese coast.
Netanyahu’s stark warning came as the Israeli military deployed additional troops and urged civilians in coastal areas to evacuate.
“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in a video address directed at the people of Lebanon.
“I say to you, the people of Lebanon: Free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
Hezbollah previously stated that it fired rockets at the Israeli port city of Haifa after the Israeli military reported 85 projectiles crossing from Lebanon.
Israel expanded its operations in Lebanon nearly a year after Hezbollah began exchanging fire in support of its ally, Hamas, following the Palestinian group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
While battling Hamas in Gaza, Israel has vowed to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah’s cross-border fire to return home.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah have pledged to maintain their opposition against Israel. On Tuesday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, stated that the group would make it impossible for Israelis to return to the north.
Israel launched a series of strikes against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on September 23, resulting in at least 1,150 deaths since then and forcing more than a million people to flee.
Israeli attacks have primarily targeted Hezbollah strongholds in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as southern Beirut.
Evacuation Warning
While the coast has not been spared, Israel’s latest evacuation warning suggests it is extending its offensive northwards.
On its Telegram channel, the Israeli military stated that its 146th Division began “limited, localised, targeted operational activities” against Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in southwestern Lebanon.
A day earlier, the military had warned people to stay away from the southern part of Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast, with a spokesperson stating that Israel would “soon operate in the maritime area against Hezbollah’s terrorist activities” south of the Awali River.
In Sidon, fishermen remained ashore, and the seafood market was unusually quiet.
“Fishing was the way we supported our children. If we don’t go out to sea, we won’t be able to feed ourselves,” said fisherman Issam Haboush.
The Israeli military reported that it hit Hezbollah’s stronghold in south Beirut, where a strike last month killed the militant group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah later claimed to have repelled Israeli troops who “infiltrated from behind” a UN peacekeepers’ position in the southern border village of Labboune.
Hezbollah Defiant
Hezbollah’s deputy leader stated that despite Israel’s “painful” strikes, the group’s leadership structure remained intact, and its military capabilities were “fine”.
“Netanyahu says he wants to bring back” the displaced to their homes in northern Israel, Qassem said. But “we say that many more residents will be forced to flee” their homes, he warned.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant later asserted that Hezbollah “is a battered and broken organisation, lacking significant command and fire capabilities, with a disintegrated leadership following the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah.”
On Tuesday, Netanyahu claimed that Israeli forces “took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself and Nasrallah’s replacement and the replacement of his replacement.”
The escalation in fighting coincided with the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
For families of the bereaved, as well as relatives of 251 individuals taken hostage in Gaza, the pain was especially acute.
Of the total number, 97 hostages are still being held, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures, which include hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has resulted in the deaths of 41,965 people in Gaza, most of whom are civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations has described as reliable.
‘Long War of Attrition’
Weakened but not crushed after a year of conflict, Hamas
remained defiant, with Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, stating that the group would “keep up the fight in a long war of attrition, one that is painful and costly for the enemy.”
He noted that scores of individuals taken hostage in Gaza last year were enduring a “very difficult” situation.
A senior Hamas official acknowledged that “several thousand fighters from the movement and other resistance groups died in combat.”
A year since the onset of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, vast areas of the territory have been reduced to rubble, and nearly all of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.
The International Committee of the Red Cross stated that after a year of conflict, civilians in Gaza were still living in makeshift shelters and struggling to find food, even as the Israeli military shifted its focus to its offensive in Lebanon.
“They still can’t return to their homes. They still don’t know whether their homes are standing,” ICRC spokeswoman Sarah Davies told AFP in an online interview from Gaza.
On Tuesday, the territory’s civil defence agency reported that an Israeli strike on a refugee camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip killed at least 17 people.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, stated that the war had turned Gaza into a “graveyard.”
Many in Gaza simply want the war to end.
“I have grown old while watching my children hungry, scared, having nightmares, and screaming day and night from the sound of the bombing and shells,” said Israa Abu Matar, a 26-year-old displaced woman.
AFP.
