Netanyahu threatens Lebanon with 'destruction' like in Gaza

Photo: Jack Guez Agence France-Presse An Israeli man examines the damage caused by a Hezbollah missile in Kiryat Yam, near Haifa, in northern Israel.

Marc Jourdier – Agence France-Presse and Laure Al Khoury – Agence France-Presse respectively in Jerusalem and Beirut

Published at 10:59 Updated at 13:49

• Middle East

The Israeli prime minister threatened the Lebanese on Tuesday with “destruction” like in Gaza if they do not “liberate” their country from Hezbollah, at a time when Israel is expanding its ground offensive against the Islamist movement in southern Lebanon.

On the first anniversary of the deadly Hamas attack on Israeli territory, Benjamin Netanyahu promised Monday to continue the fight until victory against the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement, both supported by Iran.

“Free your country from Hezbollah,” he said in a video message in English to the Lebanese on Tuesday, threatening that if they did not, Lebanon would experience “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” where the Israeli army has been waging an offensive for a year that has killed tens of thousands.

“We have eliminated (Hassan) Nasrallah,” the Hezbollah leader killed on September 27 in an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, “and the replacement for Nasrallah and the replacement for his replacement,” the prime minister added, without giving names.

His defense minister, Yoav Gallant, had said shortly before that Hezbollah was now “a wounded and broken organization,” after the intense Israeli strikes that have targeted.

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

The Israeli military announced that the 146th Division began “limited and localized operations against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southwestern Lebanon” on Monday, bordering the Mediterranean.

The division is the fourth that Israel has deployed since it began its ground offensive in southern Lebanon on September 30.

In the coastal city of Sidon, 40 kilometers south of Beirut, fishing boats remained at the dock, a day after Israel called on residents to avoid the southern coast on Monday.

“We are fishermen with no other source of income and now all our work has stopped,” said Hamza Sonbol, a fisherman.

Also read

• Israel will continue fighting, Netanyahu vows on anniversary of Hamas attack
• In Tripoli, Lebanon, aid for displaced people is being put in place
• 'A year of suffering' for Gaza Strip residents

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'Sacred mission'

At the same time, Israel has carried out airstrikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as on the southern suburbs of Beirut, the three strongholds of Hezbollah.

The Islamist movement claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on military sites and on the city of Haifa in northern Israel. About 85 projectiles were fired, according to the Israeli army. Most of the rockets are regularly intercepted.

Hezbollah also claimed to have repelled Israeli soldiers who had “infiltrated” into southern Lebanon near a position of the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL.

“Our capabilities are good, contrary to what the enemy says, who claims to have weakened us,” Hezbollah’s number two, Naim Qassem, assured in a televised address.

According to him, the movement’s leadership is “perfectly organized” despite the “painful” Israeli strikes that Hezbollah has suffered.

After weakening Hamas in a devastating offensive launched in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack, the Israeli army has moved to the mid-September the bulk of its operations in Lebanon, against Hezbollah.

Israel is seeking to push Hezbollah away from the border areas of southern Lebanon and to halt its rocket fire into northern Israel to allow the return of some 60,000 displaced residents to the region.

The year-long spiral of cross-border violence turned into open war on September 23, when Israel launched a massive bombing campaign on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.

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.

Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse Palestinians carry belongings after an Israeli strike on a house in Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip.

“Enough of the massacres”

“We have defined the aims of the war and we are achieving them: to overthrow Hamas, to bring all the hostages home, the living and the dead. “This is a sacred mission,” Netanyahu said on Monday.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

Of the 251 people kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who have been declared dead by the Israeli army.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, which is in the grip of a humanitarian disaster, the Civil Defense announced on Tuesday the death of 17 Palestinians, including children, in a strike on a house in Bureij, in the center.

“It was like an earthquake. All the people here are civilians and children!” exclaimed Mohamed Abou Khader amid the destruction. “We want the war to stop. We are tired of the massacres.”

At least 41,965 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of them civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

The war against Hamas and Hezbollah is accompanied by an escalation between Iran and Israel, which has said it is preparing a response to the attack launched by Tehran with 200 missiles on October 1 against its territory.

“Any attack against Iranian infrastructure will lead to a stronger response,” warned the head of Iranian diplomacy, Abbas Araghchi.

According to Tehran, the October 1 attack was a response to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and that, on July 31 in Tehran, of the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in an attack attributed to Israel.