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.



Türkiye Says It Believes Kurdish Fighters Will Be Forced Out of All Syrian Territory

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium October 12, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium October 12, 2023. (Reuters)
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Türkiye Says It Believes Kurdish Fighters Will Be Forced Out of All Syrian Territory

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium October 12, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers' meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium October 12, 2023. (Reuters)

Türkiye believes Syria's new rulers, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) armed group which Ankara backs, will drive Kurdish YPG fighters from all territory they occupy in northeastern Syria, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said on Sunday.

Türkiye regards the Syrian YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington, and the European Union.

The YPG spearheads an alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is backed by the United States and controls territory in northeastern Syria. Since the fall of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, Türkiye and Syrian groups it backs have fought against the SDF, seizing the city of Manbij.

"We believe that the new leadership in Syria and the Syrian National Army, which is an important part of its army, along with the Syrian people, will free all territories occupied by terrorist organizations," Guler said during a visit to Turkish troops on the Syrian border with military commanders.

"We will also take every necessary measure with the same determination until all terrorist elements beyond our borders are cleared," he said in a video released by his ministry.

Ankara has demanded the Syrian Kurdish fighters disband, and has called on Washington to withdraw its support. The US military acknowledged last week it has 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria, twice as many as it had said previously.

On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Türkiye would do "whatever it takes" to ensure its security if Syria's new administration was unable to address its concerns.