By Ahmed Kerdi and Rami Ayyub
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, June 1 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered attacks on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, signalling further escalation of a war that has complicated mediation towards resolving the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said that Israeli attacks in Lebanon were among factors causing a delay to the diplomatic process to end the U.S.-Iran war, reiterating that a Lebanon ceasefire was an integral part of any deal.
People began fleeing Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, in response to the Israeli warning – the latest wave of displacement in a conflict that has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.
“There will be no situation in which Hezbollah attacks our cities and our citizens, and its terrorist headquarters in Beirut, in Dahiyeh, will remain out of bounds,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Netanyahu said Israel was continuing to deepen its ground activity in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have carved out a self-declared security zone in the south, saying they aim to shield northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks.
Having pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut in the early weeks of the war, Israel has carried out only two strikes on the area since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a Lebanon ceasefire on April 16, even as hostilities have raged in southern Lebanon.
The conflict erupted on March 2 when Hezbollah opened fire at Israel in solidarity with Iran as it came under U.S.-Israeli attack.
DISPLACED FOR THIRD TIME
“This is the third time since the ceasefire that we’re going from place to place,” said Naji Musulmani, 61, driving a pick-up truck full of mattresses through clogged Beirut streets away from the southern suburbs.
Having fled the south in recent days, Musulmani said he would head to the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli military to attack “terrorist targets” in the southern suburbs following Hezbollah’s “repeated violations” of the ceasefire and “attacks against our cities and citizens”, a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
The order followed an intensification of hostilities in the south over the weekend, with Israeli troops capturing the 900-year-old Beaufort Castle.
Hezbollah, established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, said its fighters had fired a missile salvo targeting Israeli military infrastructure in the Israeli city of Tiberias at 1:00 a.m. on Monday, among other attacks it said were in response to Israeli ceasefire violations.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said there would be no “calm” in Beirut if there was no “calm” in northern Israel.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,400 people have been killed in the country as a result of Israeli attacks since March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire at Israel in support of Iran as it came under U.S.-Israeli attack.
Israel says 24 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.
U.S. PROPOSAL DEMANDS HEZBOLLAH CEASE FIRE FIRST
Hostilities have intensified in Lebanon despite a series of rare meetings between the Lebanese and Israeli governments, overseen by Washington.
A U.S. official said on Sunday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with both Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Netanyahu on the diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and proposed a plan to allow for “gradual de-escalation”.
As a first step, Hezbollah would stop all attacks on Israel and in return Israel would refrain from escalation in Beirut, the U.S. official said.
The official added that Aoun tried to advance the proposal and secure an agreement. However, they said Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who claimed to “guarantee” Hezbollah’s commitment to a ceasefire, placed the burden on Israel to stop “shooting first”.
Berri, a Hezbollah ally, in a comment reported by Lebanese media on Sunday, said he would guarantee “full and immediate commitment to a ceasefire” by Hezbollah. “But the question is, who will compel Israel to stop its aggression?” he said.
A senior Lebanese source told Reuters that the U.S. proposal had involved a halt to Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel in exchange for sparing Beirut and its suburbs further strikes, as a step towards a full ceasefire.
The source said Berri, however, wanted a full and comprehensive ceasefire instead of a piecemeal approach.
A second Lebanese source familiar with the diplomacy between Beirut and Washington said Netanyahu’s announcement on Monday reflected the deterioration of the U.S.-led diplomatic track.
(Additional reporting by Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam in Beirut, Menna Alaa El-Din in Cairo; Eman Abouhassira and Nayera Abdallah in Dubai. and Tom Perry; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Alex Richardson and Hugh Lawson)
Comments