Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that Tel Aviv is ready to resolve the conflict in southern Lebanon through diplomatic understandings, following days of threats of “very imminent” action by the Israeli army on the northern front, which continued to escalate on Sunday.
In a statement from his office, Galant met with Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, on Sunday and informed him that Tel Aviv is prepared to resolve the conflict in southern Lebanon (with Lebanese Hezbollah), through diplomatic understandings. However, he also added, “but we are also ready for any other scenario.”
Galant added that Israel is “committed to improving the security situation along the northern borders of Israel, including the removal of infiltration threats and cross-border firing from Lebanon.”
According to a statement from Galant’s office, the two parties discussed “the necessity of changing the security situation in the northern region, and discussed ways to repatriate Israeli displaced persons to their homes in the north.”
Galant’s Threats
Last week, Galant said that the Israeli army “will move very soon” at the border with Lebanon.
The minister told Israeli reserve soldiers stationed near the border with Gaza that they would leave the area to move north in preparation for future operations on this front.
Earlier, Israeli Chief of Staff General Hertzi Halevy said, “The possibility of a war breaking out in the coming months in the north has today become much higher than it was in the past.”
Continued Escalation
Yesterday, Hezbollah announced the killing of two of its members in clashes with the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, bringing the death toll to 179 since October 8 of last year.
The mutual shelling between Hezbollah and the occupation forces continues. The party said in a statement, “We targeted two buildings in the Menara settlement with the appropriate weapons, and achieved direct hits,” as well as “the Marj site was targeted with suitable weapons, and achieved a direct hit,” without reports of casualties.
The party also confirmed that it targeted the Rouisat Al Alam site in the occupied Shebaa Farms in Lebanon with missiles, as well as targeted enemy soldiers south of the Abbad site with appropriate weapons and reported that it achieved a direct hit.
An Al Jazeera reporter reported rockets being fired from southern Lebanon towards Israeli sites in Galilee, Shebaa Farms, and Kfar Shuba hills.
The reporter also reported that rockets were launched from southern Lebanon towards the Zabdine camp in the occupied Shebaa Farms.
Israeli planes, in turn, struck the town of Mayss al-Jabal, targeted an Israeli drone with missiles in the town of Blida, as well as targeted towns of Tayyibah, Ayta Ash-Shab, Yarun, Um al-Tut, and the Jabal al-Buta area.
Simultaneously with Israel’s war on Gaza, the southern Lebanese border has witnessed tension and mutual shelling between Hezbollah and Palestinian factions on one side and the occupation forces on the other, leading to casualties on both sides of the border.
The disastrous Israeli war on Gaza has resulted in 27,365 martyrs and 66,630 wounded, most of them children and women, causing unprecedented destruction and a humanitarian catastrophe.
