Israeli forces have advanced to positions north of Lebanon’s Litani river, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Friday, as Israel escalates attacks against Hizbullah militants after warning thousands more Lebanese to flee their villages.
The Israeli advance came as the US military hosted Israeli and Lebanese defence representatives in Washington on Friday to pursue a US-brokered plan to forge peace between the two countries and disarm Iran-backed Hizbullah.
The Washington talks also aim to reinforce an April 16th ceasefire that has failed to halt cross-border fighting, with Israeli warplanes pounding Lebanon’s south and east and Hizbullah firing drones and rockets into Israel.
The Israeli military said this week it had expanded ground operations beyond a security zone its troops have occupied since April 16th. During a visit to the Israel-Lebanon border on Friday, Netanyahu said troops had pushed even further, past the Litani river that cuts east to west about 30km into southern Lebanon.
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“Our forces have crossed the Litani and advanced to controlling positions,” Netanyahu said in remarks to military personnel, according to excerpts released by his office.
“We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa [Valley], across the entire width of the front, and are dealing Hizbullah a crushing blow.”
The Israeli conflict in Lebanon has been the most deadly spillover of the Iran war, with more than 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by Israeli strikes and evacuation orders since March 2nd, when Hizbullah fired at Israel in support of ally Tehran.
Since then, Israeli strikes have pummelled Lebanon’s south, east and its capital Beirut, killing more than 3,200 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel says 23 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.
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Early in the fighting, Israel ordered people south of the Litani river to flee. On Thursday, the military ordered people south of the Zahrani river – which lies about 10km north of the Litani – to flee as well, declaring the area a combat zone.
Meanwhile, Hamas said Netanyahu’s declaration that his country would expand its area of control in Gaza was a dangerous escalation, as European states and residents of the Palestinian territory also voiced alarm at the plan.
Under a ceasefire deal in October Israel’s military was to remain in control of 53 per cent of Gaza, but Netanyahu said on Friday that it would expand that area to an initial 70 per cent, without laying out details or a timeline.
The Palestinian militant group, which triggered two years of devastating warfare in Gaza with its October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel, described his comments as a plan for ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians.
“Any attempt to impose a new reality of occupation in Gaza is null and illegitimate,” said Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, adding that Netanyahu’s statement “represents a dangerous escalation”.
More than eight months into the ceasefire, and with global attention fixed on the war in Iran, Gaza’s underlying conflict remains stubbornly unresolved, with continued Israeli attacks, little aid reaching civilians and the risk of increased violence. Israel has already expanded its area of control in Gaza from the 53 per cent lying behind a “yellow line” mapped into the ceasefire deal up to about 64 per cent, with an area it has designated as restricted in maps shared with aid groups.
Any further reduction in space available to the more than two million Gaza residents who are mostly crammed into tents in the tiny Palestinian territory risks worsening already dire conditions there.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce. Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 900 Palestinians since the start of the truce while Palestinian militant attacks have killed four Israeli soldiers.
– Reuters
