Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has warned Hezbollah of further violence after renewed shelling on the border with Lebanon. The Israeli army reported successes in the south of the Gaza Strip.
In view of the tense situation in the Israeli-Lebanese border region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened the Hezbollah militia in the neighboring country. “I suggest that Hezbollah learns what Hamas has already learned in recent months: no terrorist is immune,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, according to his office.
He urged that residents of northern Israel be allowed to return to their homes. “This is a national goal that we all share and that we are all working responsibly to achieve. If we can, we will do it diplomatically, and if not, we will do it in other ways,” said the head of the conservative Likud party . At the same time, he emphasized: “What happened on October 7th will not happen again.”
At the weekend there was again mutual shelling on the northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah, which is closely linked to Iran, said it carried out ten attacks on the Israeli border area today. According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, several border towns were hit by Israeli artillery fire. There were initially no reports of casualties.
According to a report in the Washington Post, the USA is said to have warned Israel of a “significant escalation” in the neighboring country. There is great concern among government officials that an escalation could be even bloodier than the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
Several dead in attack in West Bank
The situation in the West Bank also remains extremely tense. An Israeli air strike killed seven people, according to the Palestinian health authority. According to Palestinian reports, the attack in the city of Jenin hit a citizens’ meeting. According to Israeli sources, those killed were terrorists.
Raids take place regularly in Jenin, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority and is considered a gathering point for extremists. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the Israeli army has stepped up its operations in the West Bank.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
Army reports successes in Khan Yunis
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues its fighting in the Gaza Strip. According to its own account, it destroyed more than 100 Palestinian terrorist targets in the hotly contested city of Khan Yunis in the south of the coastal strip. Dozens of terrorists were killed. The destroyed facilities include tunnels, observation posts and a Hamas headquarters.
Report on journalists killed in Gaza Strip
As the news channel Al-Jazeera reported, the 27-year-old son of Wael al-Dahdu, the Arabic broadcaster’s bureau chief in Gaza, was also killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hamza al-Dahdu was also a journalist and was driving a vehicle in the west of the city of Khan Yunis when a rocket hit. In addition to al-Dahdu, another journalist was killed and a third inmate was injured. An Israeli army spokesman said they were reviewing the report.
At the same time, extremist Palestinians fired rockets towards Israel again today. According to the army, rocket alarms were triggered in border towns near the Gaza Strip.
Baerbock and Blinken travel to the Middle East
In order to achieve a de-escalation in the war between Israel and Hamas and to avert an expansion, both Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken are visiting Middle Eastern countries again. Baerbock was received by President Izchak Herzog at the start of her stay in Israel.
Before flying to Israel, Baerbock urgently called for an end to the violence. The country has the right and duty to defend itself against terror, but must protect civilians much better in its military actions, she demanded. Much more humanitarian aid is needed in the Gaza Strip to combat hunger, epidemics and cold.
Blinken also drew attention to the devastating conditions in the Gaza Strip. The food situation for the people there is “very difficult,” he said after a visit to a World Food Program warehouse in the Jordanian capital Amman. Blinken’s program also includes talks in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Like Baerbock, he also wants to visit Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.