THE Israeli military will continue to bomb Lebanon if Hezbollah is not disarmed, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has warned, saying “there will be no calm in Beirut” and “no order or stability in Lebanon” unless Israel’s security is assured.
“Agreements must be honoured, and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force,” the Israeli minister said in a Friday statement.
Israel’s military launched a series of strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday night, sending huge numbers of residents fleeing their homes on the eve of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday after issuing a forced evacuation order an hour earlier.
Israel claimed, without providing evidence, that its latest attack was launched against Hezbollah “drone factories” in the Lebanese capital.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah was “operating to increase production of UAVs [drones] for the next war” with Israel in “blatant violation” of the terms of November’s ceasefire.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli fighter jets had carried out about a dozen strikes in the attack. A Hezbollah statement said a preliminary assessment showed nine buildings had been destroyed, while dozens of others were damaged.
Hezbollah also denied there were drone production facilities in the targeted locations.
The Israeli attack was the fourth, and heaviest, carried out targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs – a Hezbollah stronghold – since the ceasefire ended hostilities on November 27.
Israel’s last attack on the Lebanese capital, in which it claimed to destroy “infrastructure where precision missiles” were being stored by Hezbollah, came in late April.
Across Lebanon, Israel has violated the ceasefire on a near-daily basis in the seven months since it was signed, according to the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun, Arab nations and human rights groups.
Aoun has appealed to the United States and France, guarantors of the November ceasefire, to rein in Israel’s attacks.
Speaking late on Thursday, Aoun voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression”, labelling the attacks a “flagrant violation of an international accord … on the eve of a sacred religious festival”.
On Friday, Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah lawmaker, urged “all Lebanese political forces … to translate their statements of condemnation into concrete action”, including diplomatic pressure.
In the months since the ceasefire, Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed at least 190 people and wounded nearly 500 more, the Lebanese government said in April.