Hizbullah says it must fight from Lebanon to put Israel off ‘broad war’

As Israel increases its attacks on south Lebanon, the head of Hizbullah’s executive council, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, has said the movement does not want to raise the level of cross-border exchanges.

Iran-backed Hizbullah has mounted carefully choreographed strikes on Israel to maintain a military counter-pressure on Israel while it fights Hamas in Gaza.

Dismissing advice and threats from visiting delegations pressing Hizbullah to halt its attacks, Safieddine asked: “What does America want and what does Israel want? They are the ones who take the decisions for a broad war on Lebanon and on our region.” He said any sign of weakness would “tempt [Israel] and increase its desire to wage a broad war”.

Safieddine was responding to Israeli army chief Lt Gen Herzl Halevi who spoke of the “need to kill Hizbullah operatives, to demonstrate our superiority” during a visit on Sunday to Israel’s northern front.

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Israel’s war cabinet minister Benny Gantz told US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Monday that the international community “must act to ensure that the state of Lebanon stops such aggression along its border”.

Following Israeli strikes on Lebanese villages which killed local official Hussein Mansour (80) in the border town of Taybeh on Monday and targeted Rihan 20km inside Lebanon, Hizbullah replied with attacks on Israeli army posts along the frontier.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7th, 103 Hizbullah fighters and 17 civilians have been killed in southern Lebanon while six soldiers and four civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Gaza offensive has prompted other members of the Iran-backed anti-Israel resistance front to target Israeli, United States and Western interests. Near strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, a missile fired by Yemeni Houthis on Tuesday struck the Norwegian-flagged oil and chemical tanker Strinda, which was travelling to the Suez Canal.

Houthi military spokesman Gen Yahya Saree has warned: “If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces.”

Iraqi militia forces last week fired 14 rockets at the US embassy based in the fortified green zone in Baghdad, causing damage but no casualties. While this was the first strike on the embassy since the Gaza war began, there have been at least 78 militia missile and drone attacks on US troops based in Iraq and Syria, resulting in dozens of injuries and eliciting US retaliatory bombings in Syria.

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