Biden, Netanyahu speak; Israel vows ‘lethal’ retaliation against Iran; Hezbollah, Israeli troops clash along Lebanese border

Hezbollah said on Wednesday its fighters had pushed back advancing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops in clashes along the Lebanese border, including in a village where Israeli troops had been filmed hoisting an Israeli flag.

Israeli forces killed five armed Palestinian fighters in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, said Israeli police.

Israel vows lethal retaliation against Iran

US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a call on Wednesday amid tensions with Iran, while Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised an Israeli strike against Iran would be “lethal, precise and surprising”.

The 30-minute call was the first known chat for Biden and Netanyahu since August and coincided with a sharp escalation of Israel’s conflict with Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, but with no sign of an imminent ceasefire to end the conflict with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

The call was “direct and very productive”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, while acknowledging the two leaders have disagreements and are open about them.

The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to a missile attack last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon. The Iranian attack ultimately killed no one in Israel.

After describing Iran’s 1 October missile attack as a failure, Gallant said in a video issued by his office after the Biden-Netanyahu call had ended: “Whoever attacks us will be hurt and will pay a price. Our attack will be deadly, precise and above all surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened, they will see the results.”

Netanyahu has promised that arch-foe Iran will pay for its missile attack, while Tehran has said any retaliation would be met with vast destruction, raising fears of a wider war in the oil-producing region which could draw in the US.

The US has said it supports Israel going after Iran-backed targets like Hezbollah and Hamas but has tried, unsuccessfully, to stem rising conflict, broker a ceasefire in Gaza and persuade Israel to curb rocket attacks on residential areas that have killed thousands of people.

Relations between Biden and Netanyahu have been strained over the Israeli leader’s handling of the war in Gaza and the conflict with Hezbollah. Israel has said it will pursue its military operations until Israelis are safe.

In War, a book out next week, journalist Bob Woodward reports that Biden regularly accused Netanyahu of having no strategy, and shouted, “Bibi, what the fuck?” at him in July, after Israeli strikes near Beirut and in Iran.

Asked about the book, one US official familiar with the two leaders’ past interactions said Biden had used sharp, direct, unfiltered and colourful language both with and about Netanyahu while in office.

Wednesday’s call was “a positive call, and we appreciate the support of the US,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, told reporters.

Gallant cancelled a Wednesday visit to the Pentagon. Gallant said in a statement he had postponed the visit at Netanyahu’s request until after the prime minister spoke with Biden.

Tensions have increased in recent weeks as US officials were repeatedly blindsided by Israeli actions, according to a person familiar with the matter. These included Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied carrying out.

Israel has also been slow to share details of its planning for retaliation against Iran’s ballistic missile attack, the person said.

Biden said last Friday he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were in Israel’s shoes, adding he thought Israel had not concluded how to respond to Iran. Last week, he also said he would not support Israel striking Iranian nuclear sites.

Hezbollah reports clashes with Israeli troops 

Hezbollah said on Wednesday its fighters had pushed back advancing Israeli forces in clashes along the Lebanese border, including in a village where Israeli troops had been filmed hoisting an Israeli flag.

The ground clashes, which are spreading along Lebanon’s mountainous frontier with Israel, took place with the Gaza war still raging and as the Israeli government prepares to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack last week.

Hezbollah said its fighters had fired several rocket salvoes at Israeli troops near the village of Labbouneh in the western part of the border area, close to the Mediterranean coast, and had managed to push them back.

Further east, it said it had attacked Israeli soldiers in the village of Maroun el-Ras and unleashed missile barrages at Israeli forces advancing towards the twin border villages of Mays al-Jabal and Mouhaybib.

Video footage posted on social media showed three Israeli soldiers raising their country’s blue and white flag in Maroun el-Ras, the first time in decades they are known to have done so on Lebanese territory Israel occupied from 1982-2000. Reuters confirmed the location based on visible geographic features.

Amin Sherri, a Hezbollah politician visiting displaced people in schools in Beirut on Wednesday, told reporters that Israeli forces had not been able to achieve their military aims and the Israeli flag raised in the south was up only briefly.

Rocket sirens sounded constantly across northern Israel, including in the major port city of Haifa, following heavy fire from Lebanon. Israel’s military said about 40 projectiles were launched in one barrage at Haifa, some of which were intercepted while others fell in the area.

Israeli ambulance workers said two people were killed in strikes on Kiryat Shmona near the border and at least six were wounded in Haifa.

Israel meanwhile launched airstrikes including at targets far from the border combat zone. The Lebanese health ministry said four people were killed and 10 wounded by a strike in the town of Wardaniyeh, north of Sidon along the coast.

Israel has said that troops from as many as four divisions have operated in Lebanon since the first announcement of the ground operation on 1 October.

Its bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most of them in the last two weeks, and forced 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has no choice but to strike Hezbollah so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to homes they fled under Hezbollah rocket fire.

At the port in Beirut, some 2,000 Turkish citizens and their family members were awaiting evacuation on Wednesday aboard two landing ships sent by Turkey.

“We cannot take this situation any more,” said Issa Malak, a Turkish-Lebanese dual citizen. “There is no future in Lebanon.”

Israel forces kill five Palestinian fighters in West Bank

Israeli forces killed five armed Palestinian fighters in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, said Israeli police.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed the deaths of only four men.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of the Fatah party, said in a later statement on Wednesday that four of its members were “martyred after a coward assassination operation” by special forces of the Israeli army.

The Palestinian official news agency Wafa earlier said that Israeli special forces had opened fire on a vehicle the men were travelling in, in the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Violence has surged across the West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians — including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders — have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year. At least six people were wounded, two of them seriously, in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Hadera on Wednesday, Israeli authorities said.

Top UN envoy in Lebanon calls for truce

A call by the US and France for a 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah “is still on the table”, said the top UN official in Lebanon on Wednesday as she pushed for a way to enforce a UN Security Council resolution violated for years by both sides.

A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.

That has sparked friction with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which effectively controls southern Lebanon. All parties are banned from crossing the Blue Line — a UN-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

“We need a realistic roadmap for the implementation, by both sides, of resolution 1701. And this must include clear implementation and enforcement mechanisms,” said the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

“At the end of the day, it is the lack or non-implementation of resolution 1701 over the past 18 years that led to today’s harsh reality,” she told reporters.

Any changes would have to be made by the 15-member Security Council and agreed by both sides.

UN peacekeepers have remained in place in southern Lebanon, despite Israel asking them to move as its troops crossed the border to target Hezbollah militants. Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had pushed back advancing Israeli forces.

US warns against Israel turning Lebanon into another Gaza

The US State Department on Wednesday warned that it would be unacceptable for Israel’s military incursion in southern Lebanon to evolve into a situation similar to its invasion of the Gaza Strip.

“We cannot and must not see the situation in Lebanon turn into anything like the situation in Gaza. That would, of course, not be acceptable,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing when asked about Netanyahu’s comments on Tuesday.

“I’m making very clear that there should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza.”

Netanyahu said on Tuesday in a video message directed at the people of Lebanon that Hezbollah was weaker than it had been in many years and urged the Lebanese to “take back your country”.

“Don’t let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they’ve already done,” said Netanyahu. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023, according to the enclave’s health ministry. It has displaced nearly all its 2.3 million people and wrought a humanitarian crisis with widespread hunger and a breakdown in healthcare and critical infrastructure.

Hamas-led militants stormed through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the border on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on 8 October 2023, citing solidarity with Hamas.

Israeli strikes have hit the group’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs on a nightly basis, and ground incursions have expanded to additional parts of Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. DM

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