Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel, Netanyahu threatens Lebanon with “destruction”

Lebanon's Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on Wednesday and said it had foiled Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of “Gaza-like” destruction in Lebanon.

On the Iran front, US President Joe Biden is scheduled to hold a phone call with Netanyahu on Wednesday about Israel's preparations to strike the Islamic Republic, according to the US website Axios, citing US officials.

Israel said it was preparing a response to Iran's October 1 attack with 200 missiles against its territory. Tehran said its attack was in response to Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the killing in Tehran of Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an attack blamed on Israel.

After weakening Hamas in a large-scale military campaign in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement, Israel moved most of its operations to neighboring Lebanon in mid-September.

Objective: to push Hezbollah away from the border areas of southern Lebanon, its stronghold, and to stop its rocket fire toward northern Israel to allow the return to this region of some 60,000 displaced residents.

As the Israeli army conducts a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah announced that its fighters had detonated “an explosive device against an enemy force” that “was trying to infiltrate Blida (southeast) and fired shells at soldiers who were trying to advance toward the Labouneh area (southwest).

In Israel, the army announced that it had intercepted “two projectiles” coming from Lebanon shortly after warning sirens sounded in several localities on the coastal plain south of Haifa and in northern border localities.

– “Before sinking into the abyss” –

© AFP – ANWAR AMRO

“You have a chance to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will cause destruction and suffering like we are seeing in Gaza,” Netanyahu said in an English-language video to the Lebanese.

“I say to you, Lebanese: liberate your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end,” he added, referring to the pro-Iranian Shiite movement whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, killed on September 27 in an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, was considered the most powerful man in Lebanon.

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“We have eliminated Nasrallah, and Nasrallah's replacement and his replacement's replacement,” he added without giving names.

Last Saturday, a Hezbollah official said that contact had been lost with Hashem Safieddine, tipped to succeed Nasrallah, since Israeli strikes near Beirut the previous day on the southern suburbs of Beirut. The Israeli army said it had targeted him but did not confirm his death.

The ongoing air and ground offensive in Gaza, where Israeli troops are still present, has reduced entire sectors of the small Palestinian territory to rubble, displaced the vast majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants, caused a humanitarian disaster and left tens of thousands dead.

– “Continue to live” –

Destruction in Kiryat Yam, near Haifa, in northern Israel, after a rocket fired from Lebanon, October 8, 2024 © AFP – Jack GUEZ

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who postponed a trip to Washington, said Tuesday that Hezbollah was now “a wounded and broken organization.”

“Our capabilities are good, contrary to what the enemy says, who claims to have weakened us,” Hezbollah's number two, Naim Qassem, had previously assured.

The Israeli army has been engaged in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon with four divisions since September 30. At the same time, it is continuing air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds, particularly in the southern suburbs.

On October 8, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas. The year-long spiral of cross-border violence turned into open warfare on September 23, with the start of violent Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds.

Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than 1,110 since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures. More than a million people have been displaced.

Despite the blows inflicted on Hezbollah and Hamas, these movements continue to fire rockets against Israel, which borders the Gaza Strip to the south and Lebanon to the north.

A child in the Bureij camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, targeted by an Israeli strike on October 8 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

In the Gaza Strip, where deadly Israeli raids continue, residents “are still living in tents (…) struggling to feed their families every day, to find clean water, to find the energy to continue living,” described Sarah Davies, an official with the International Committee of the Red Cross from the south of the besieged Palestinian territory.

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