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Lebanon: Israel Says ‘No Escaping a Sharp, Quick War with Hezbollah’

A Lebanese family stands next to a destroyed building that were hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A Lebanese family stands next to a destroyed building that were hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
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Lebanon: Israel Says ‘No Escaping a Sharp, Quick War with Hezbollah’

A Lebanese family stands next to a destroyed building that were hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A Lebanese family stands next to a destroyed building that were hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group intensified its strikes on Sunday on military positions in Israel using heavy missiles following Israeli strikes on a Lebanese town in South Lebanon that killed three Hezbollah fighters.
Israeli warplanes flew for the first time at low altitude and broke the sound barrier over Mount Lebanon.
This came in parallel with new Israeli threats voiced by Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who said there is no escaping "a sharp, quick war” with Hezbollah.
He said “the war in Lebanon will carry a price, and I don't underestimate it, but any price we pay today will be much smaller than what we will be forced to pay in the future, if we don't act."
Earlier, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallanthad said that Tel Aviv does not seek a war with Hezbollah but that his army is prepared for one.
On Sunday, Israel said that after surveillance, its warplanes hit a “military” building in the southern Lebanese town of Hula it said was housing Hezbollah fighters.
It also said its forces spotted a fighter entering a military building of Hezbollah in the village of Kfar Kila. Shortly after, its forces bombed it.
Fears over Hezbollah retaliation, the Israeli media said that Israel’s army requested all residents of the Ma’ayan Baruch settlement in north Israel to stay in shelters.
Sirens were sounded in several towns in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth said.
Israel's military said 18 of its soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, when a drone struck their position in the occupied Golan Heights, which border Lebanon.
The Israeli army said in a statement the strike happened earlier on Sunday. It said since then, it had struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon with air strikes and artillery fire.
Fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah has been escalating, after it was triggered by the Gaza war.

 

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Netanyahu ‘Takes Revenge’ on Macron in Lebanon

 A photo of Netanyahu and Macron during their meeting in Jerusalem in October 2023 (AFP)
 A photo of Netanyahu and Macron during their meeting in Jerusalem in October 2023 (AFP)
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Netanyahu ‘Takes Revenge’ on Macron in Lebanon

 A photo of Netanyahu and Macron during their meeting in Jerusalem in October 2023 (AFP)
 A photo of Netanyahu and Macron during their meeting in Jerusalem in October 2023 (AFP)

Israel’s insistence that France can not be a member of the international committee that will monitor a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon is due to a series of French practices that have disturbed Israel recently, political sources in Tel Aviv revealed.
These practices are most notably attributed to the French judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, who has joined other judges to unanimously issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the sources revealed.
“The Israeli government is following with concern the French role at The Hague,” they said, noting that veteran French lawyer Gilles Devers led a team of 300 international lawyers of various nationalities who volunteered to accuse Israel of “committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
According to the Israeli Maariv newspaper, Israeli officials believe that Devers, who signed the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Galant, would not have dared to do so without having received a green light from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Israeli sources also mentioned other reasons for Israel’s anger at France, such as the government’s decision to bar Israeli firms from exhibiting at the Euronaval arms show near Paris earlier this month.
French officials have repeatedly said that Paris is committed to Israel's security and point out that its military helped defend Israel after Iranian attacks in April and earlier this month.
Paris has so far also refused to recognize the Palestinian state. But the Israeli government is not satisfied. It wants France to follow the United States and blindly support its war in Gaza and Lebanon.
Tel Aviv also feels incredibly confident that France should be punished, and therefore, decided that Paris could not participate in the Lebanese ceasefire agreement, knowing that the Israeli government itself has traveled to Paris several times begging for its intervention, especially during the war on Lebanon.
Meanwhile, an air of optimism has emerged in Israel around the chances for an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon following negotiations led by US envoy Amos Hochstein.
But any optimism relies on Netanyahu’s final decision. The PM is still conducting talks with his friends and allies of the far right who reject the ceasefire agreement and instead, demand that Lebanese citizens not be allowed to return to their villages on the border with Israel. They also request that a security belt be turned into a permanently depopulated and mined zone.
Hochstein Talks
Meanwhile, political sources in Israel claim that what is holding up a ceasefire deal so far is Lebanon. According to Israel's Channel 12, Hochstein expressed a “firm stance” during his talks with the Lebanese side. The envoy delivered clear terms that were passed on to Hezbollah, which the channel said “led to significant progress” in the talks.
Israeli officials said that Tel Aviv is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with Hezbollah in the coming days.
The channel said that during his late visit to Tel Aviv, coming from Beirut after talks with Speaker Nabih Barri, Hochstein said, “I placed before them (Lebanese officials) a final warning, and it seems to have been effective.”
Iran Obstacle
Despite the “positive atmosphere,” informed diplomatic sources pointed to a major obstacle: Iran.
Channel 12 quoted the sources as saying that Lebanon has not yet received the final approval required from Iran, which has significant influence over Hezbollah.

According to the draft proposal, the Lebanese Army must be redeployed to the south and carry out a comprehensive operation to remove weapons from villages. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will “supervise and monitor the implementation of the operation.”
Channel 12 said Israel believes that such details could still derail the agreement. It also said that Hezbollah could violate the truce.
“In such cases, Israel would have to conduct military operations inside the Lebanese territory,” the channel reported, adding that “one of the unsettled issues is related to the committee that will oversee the implementation of the agreement between Israel and Lebanon.”
The sources said Tel Aviv “insists that France is not part of the agreement, nor part of the committee that will oversee its implementation.”