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Israeli minister Benny Gantz, one of three men who make up the country’s war cabinet, has threatened to ramp up military action in the north to push Hizbollah forces, which are firing at Israel from Lebanon, further away from its border.
“The situation on Israel’s northern border demands change,” Gantz told a press conference late on Wednesday. “The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out.”
“If the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hizbollah from the border, the IDF will do it,” he said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel and Hizbollah have engaged in near-daily cross-border fire since October 8, with Hizbollah acting in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran and has been fighting against Israel in the Gaza Strip for the past 11 weeks. Each clash raises fears of the war in Gaza escalating into a wider regional conflagration.
More than a dozen casualties have been reported by Lebanese authorities. Three people were killed by an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon this week, including two Lebanese brothers who had Australian citizenship.
Australia said on Thursday it was investigating Israel’s claim that one of the brothers was a member of Hizbollah. At their funeral, the brothers’ coffins were draped in Hizbollah flags.
Three Lebanese journalists have also been killed by Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon since the start of the war, including a photojournalist from news agency Reuters.
Four Israeli civilians and eight soldiers have been killed in the northern clashes so far. The cross-border fighting has led Israel to evacuate civilians from a strip of the north several kilometres wide. According to the IDF, 80,000 people have been evacuated from the north. Towns there, such as tourist resort Rosh HaNikra or Israel’s northernmost point Metula, have become deserted ghost towns.
On Wednesday, Hizbollah claimed responsibility for a barrage of fire on what it said was an Israeli naval base near Rosh HaNikra, with Israel intercepting six of at least 18 rockets, and no damage caused.
Israel’s northern forces were “in a state of very high readiness”, Major General Ori Gordin, head of the IDF’s northern command, said on Wednesday. “Today, we approved plans for a variety of contingencies, and we need to be prepared to strike if required.”
Foreign affairs minister Eli Cohen visited northern Israel on a tour on Wednesday and said Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “should understand that he is next in line”.
“We will work to exhaust the political option, and if it does not work, all options are on the table in order to ensure the security of the state of Israel and return the residents of the north to their homes,” Cohen said.
Fears of a wider war in the Middle East have grown this week after a senior Iranian general based in Syria, Reza Mousavi, was killed in an air strike that Tehran blamed on Israel. Iran has threatened to retaliate. Israel has sought to dissuade Hizbollah from scaling up the war by raising the stakes: earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that if Hizbollah launches “an all-out war”, Israel would “turn Beirut . . . into Gaza”.
Palestinian health ministry officials said on Wednesday that more than 21,100 people had been killed by Israel’s air and land offensive in Gaza, since the start of the war on October 7.
Israel’s offensive was triggered by a large-scale attack on southern Israel by Gaza-based Hamas in which more than 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli officials, and many taken hostage.
Much of Gaza is now in ruins and almost all of its 2mn-strong population displaced from their homes. Videos on social media on Thursday showed residents of central Gaza’s refugee camps evacuating further south on foot or packed into vehicles as Israel expanded ground operations in the area.
In the occupied West Bank on Thursday, at least one Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli troops, the Palestinian health ministry said, while Israeli forces raided foreign exchange offices and seized cash the military claimed was destined for Hamas.
Images shared on social media showed stacks of banknotes in boxes being carried out of offices by Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinian Monetary Authority, the central bank, said six exchange offices under its supervision had been blown up and raided. It accused Israel of violating international norms in an aim to undermine confidence in the Palestinian banking sector.
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