Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he had ordered the country’s military to step up strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, while vowing to “crush” the group.
“I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his Telegram channel, wherein he accused Hezbollah of targeting Israeli forces with drone strikes.
“It is true that they are attacking us with drones, including fibre-optic drones, but we have teams working on countermeasures and we will solve this issue… We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them,” AFP cited Netanyahu as saying in the statement.
The Israeli military targeted sites it said belonged to Hezbollah in Lebanon, including in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley, late on Monday. It said it had struck more 70 sites throughout Monday. Netanyahu said that Hezbollah was firing fibre optic drones – a weapon which has been used widely in the war in Ukraine – at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and those posted in northern Israel.
Netanyahu’s warning triggers residents to leave Beirut suburbs
Even as Netanyahu’s video statement was posted, residents in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s Capital Beirut, where Hezbollah has a large presence, started leaving, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, several strikes were reported in Lebanon’s eastern town of Mashghara in the Bekaa region, according to the state-run agency. This comes after Hezbollah said it had carried out eight attacks earlier on Monday. This included a drone strike on Israeli forces in Misgav Am in northern Israel, AP reported.
Before the Israeli PM’s warning, an official from the US State Department had said that Hezbollah had allegedly neglected repeated requests to stop the drone strikes on Israeli forces, including a recent ultimatum. There has been a fragile ceasefire in place between Israel and Lebanon, brokered by the US, since April 17.
However, the US official claimed that Hezbollah had fired over a thousand drones and over 700 rockets since the temporary ceasefire to derail negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, according to AP. The official said the “status quo is untenable”. Israel and Lebanon had initiated their first direct talks in more than three decades last month.
The meetings were held in Washington. The Lebanese and Israeli military officials will meet again on Friday this week at the Pentagon to discuss the ceasefire situation.
