An Israeli firefighter and a resident take cover as sirens warn of rockets launched from southern Lebanon, in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel. © Jalaa Marey, AFP
Fears of a regional war rose Thursday after Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement said none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict, and Israel said it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive.
Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed a Hezbollah operative.
Hezbollah also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions on Thursday.
Experts are divided on the prospect of wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s vow to eradicate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah‘s group and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the Gaza war, and the bellicose talk has escalated along with the strikes.
In a televised address, Nasrallah said “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if a wider war began.
The chief of the Iran-backed group also threatened nearby Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel “to target Lebanon”.
European Union member Cyprus houses two British bases, including an airbase, but they are in sovereign British territory and not controlled by the Cypriot government.
Weary residents of Beirut on Thursday downplayed the chances of war in Lebanon, which a political deadlock has left essentially leaderless while a five-year economic meltdown continues.
In Israel, some citizens called for action against Hezbollah, and Noam Galili, 29, said: “I know what it is like to live close to Lebanon, but it never felt as dangerous as it does now.”
Pressures
The violence has already displaced tens of thousands of people, mostly in Lebanon but also in northern Israel.
In central Gaza, residents said they had turned to cooking oil to power their cars.
US President Joe Biden has called for the implementation of a ceasefire plan he outlined last month.
Hochstein and Washington’s top diplomat, Blinken, say a deal to curb fighting in Gaza would by extension help resolve the Hezbollah-Israel violence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s far-right coalition partners strongly oppose a Gaza ceasefire.
He is also facing regular street protests by tens of thousands demanding a deal to free the hostages, and accusing him of prolonging the war.
“We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all of the hostages return,” Netanyahu on Thursday told relatives of hostages killed in the territory.
“We do not have the option of giving up.”
In a separate statement on Thursday he called the war a battle for Israel’s existence.
“I am prepared to suffer personal attacks provided that Israel receives the ammunition from the US that it needs in the war for its existence,” he said.
His statement came after he angered Washington with a video statement accusing it of “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel”.
The White House on Thursday called Netanyahu’s video statement “vexing”.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told Israel’s Channel 13 on Wednesday: “To say that we are going to make Hamas disappear is to throw sand in people’s eyes. If we don’t provide an alternative, in the end, we will have Hamas.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month said Washington had not seen an Israeli post-war plan and “the trajectory Israel is on” would still leave thousands of Hamas fighters.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Thursday that Hamas’s “final stronghold” in Rafah on the border with Egypt is systematically being taken apart.
“And we will win,” he told a press briefing.
(AFP)/ FRANCE24
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