Hezbollah’s Priority Is Defeating Israel, Open to Efforts to Stop the Attacks, Group’s Official

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Hezbollah’s Priority Is Defeating Israel, Open to Efforts to Stop the Attacks, Group’s Official

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Jbaa on October 11, 2024. (AFP)

Hezbollah's priority right now is defeating Israel militarily, but it is open to any efforts to stop "the aggression", the head of Lebanese group's media office, Mohammad Afif, said on Friday.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified in recent weeks, with Israel bombing southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, killing many of Hezbollah's top leaders, and sending ground troops into areas of southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah for its part has fired rockets deeper into Israel.

"Tel Aviv is only the start, Israel has only seen so little," Afif said in a televised press conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut with the rubble of destroyed buildings behind him.

"Our absolute priority now is to defeat the enemy and force them to stop the aggression. However, any internal or external political effort to achieve a cessation of aggression is appreciated as long as it is consistent with our comprehensive vision of the battle, its circumstances and its results."

He denied there were weapons stored in Beirut's southern suburbs and said Israel used timed bombs to make it seem so, promising residents of the neighborhood and those displaced from southern Lebanon and Bekaa that they would return soon.



Separate Israeli Drone Strikes Kill 4 People in Lebanon

Forensic experts and firefighters work around the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of an Israeli drone attack in Araya, east of Beirut, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Fadel ITANI / AFP)
Forensic experts and firefighters work around the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of an Israeli drone attack in Araya, east of Beirut, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Fadel ITANI / AFP)
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Separate Israeli Drone Strikes Kill 4 People in Lebanon

Forensic experts and firefighters work around the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of an Israeli drone attack in Araya, east of Beirut, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Fadel ITANI / AFP)
Forensic experts and firefighters work around the wreckage of a vehicle at the site of an Israeli drone attack in Araya, east of Beirut, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Fadel ITANI / AFP)

An Israeli drone strike on Thursday hit a car at an army checkpoint in the southern port city of Sidon, killing three people and wounding several others, including Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers, Lebanon’s state news agency and the army said.

The Lebanese army said in a communique that three soldiers and four Malaysian peacekeepers were injured.

The National News Agency said one of the wounded was taken to the hospital while the peacekeepers were treated for minor injuries at the scene of the attack at the northern entrance of Sidon, Lebanon’s third-largest city. There was no immediate information on the identities of those who died.

The convoy of peacekeepers happened to be driving nearby when the airstrike occurred, according to the report.

A drone strike earlier Thursday hit a car on a main highway just outside Beirut, killing one woman, according to local media.

The attack took place near Araya, where several similar drone strikes have taken place in the past week.