Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he told French President Emmanuel Macron that he would not agree to a ceasefire deal that failed to stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday she planned to visit Lebanon on 18 October, just days after Israeli forces attacked UN bases in the country, drawing anger from many EU capitals, including Rome.
The US opposed the bombing campaign that Israel has carried out in Beirut in past weeks and has communicated its concerns, particularly over the civilian death toll, said US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday.
Netanyahu says no to ‘unilateral ceasefire’ with Hezbollah
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he told French President Emmanuel Macron that he would not agree to a ceasefire deal that failed to stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.
Macron has called for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah as well as an end to arms exports used in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
“The prime minister told President Macron that he opposes a unilateral ceasefire, which would not change the security situation in Lebanon and would return the country to its previous state,” according to a statement from his office.
“He emphasised that Israel is operating against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation to prevent it from threatening Israel’s citizens on the northern border and to enable them to return to their homes safely."
On Monday, France rejected demands made by Netanyahu for a UN peacekeeping mission, known as Unifil, to pull back from its position in Lebanon, while France has summoned Israel’s ambassador over an incident where Israeli troops opened fire at three positions held by UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu, it said, was taken aback at Macron’s intention to host a conference in Paris on the issue of Lebanon, with participants such as South Africa and Algeria, “which are working to deny Israel its fundamental right of self-defence and, in effect, reject its very right to exist”.
In a message to Macron, Netanyahu’s office also said in a separate statement that the State of Israel was established through “the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France”. It added that in recent decades, the UN had approved hundreds of anti-Semitic resolutions against Israel.
Italy’s prime minister to visit Lebanon
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday she planned to visit Lebanon on 18 October, just days after Israeli forces attacked UN bases in the country, drawing anger from many EU capitals, including Rome.
Unifil is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel — an area that has seen serious clashes this month between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.
Israel has demanded the withdrawal of the Unifil forces, which include just over 1,000 Italian troops, but contributor nations have refused and angrily denounced repeated Israeli strikes against the bases that have injured some peacekeepers.
“We believe that the attitude of the Israeli forces is completely unjustified,” Meloni told the upper house of parliament, describing it as a “blatant violation” of a UN resolution that mandated the Lebanese mission.
In a later speech to the lower house, she said: “I believe that a withdrawal on the basis of a unilateral request by Israel would be a big mistake. It would undermine the credibility of the mission itself, the credibility of the United Nations.”
Her decision to travel to Lebanon, despite daily attacks on the country by Israel, highlights Italy’s determination to support the UN operation and underscores Rome’s anger with Netanyahu over the issue.
Meloni’s government has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel over the past year as it battled regional enemies following the 7 October Hamas assault out of Gaza.
Since the start of Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon on 1 October, Unifil positions have been targeted 20 times, including by direct fire and an incident on Sunday when two Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a Unifil base, the UN has said.
US raises concerns with Israel over bombing in Beirut
The US opposed the bombing campaign that Israel has carried out in Beirut in past weeks and has communicated its concerns, particularly over the civilian death toll, said US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday.
“There are specific strikes that it would be appropriate for Israel to carry out. But when it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut for the past few weeks, it’s something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to,” said Miller.
The civilian death toll was among Washington’s concerns, he said, without elaborating.
Miller’s comments represent a harsher tone than Washington has adopted so far toward Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, which Israel says are aimed at degrading Iran-aligned Hezbollah and pushing its forces north and away from the border.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombing campaign in Lebanon in recent weeks, hitting Hezbollah’s strongholds of south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa region. Other areas of Lebanon have also been hit.
The hostilities had been playing out along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel since October last year in parallel with Israel’s offensive in Gaza that was triggered by Hamas’ 7 October attack on southern Israel.
Israeli strikes had killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, said the Lebanese health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon had been displaced. The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign.
US tells Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation
The US has warned Israel that it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid, said US officials, in the strongest such warning since Israeli operations to root out Hamas militants began a year ago.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials on Sunday expressing concern over the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian enclave, said US officials on Tuesday.
“We are writing now to underscore the US government’s deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and seek urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory,” they wrote in a letter to their Israeli counterparts, posted by an Axios reporter on X.
Failure to do so could affect US policy, said the letter, which was first reported by Israeli News 12.
The letter is the clearest ultimatum yet to Netanyahu’s government since the Gaza conflict began, raising the prospect of a shift in Washington’s support for Israel.
Washington has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s attacks on southern Israel just over a year ago. The Biden administration has mostly declined to impose restrictions on the billions of dollars of military aid the United States sends to Israel, even after previous warnings over its conduct in the war were not heeded.
The administration, which has consistently said it supports Israel’s right to defend itself, appeared to balance its criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with a strong show of military support by announcing on Sunday — the same day as the letter — that it would send US troops and the advanced Thaad anti-missile batteries to Israel.
The letter outlined specific steps Israel must take within 30 days, including enabling a minimum of 350 trucks to enter Gaza per day, instituting pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery and rescinding evacuation orders to Palestinian civilians when there is no operational need.
“Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for US policy ... and relevant US law,” said the letter.
Israel ‘seems set to expand offensive’ against Hezbollah
In a sign Israel may expand its ground operations against Hezbollah while bolstering its defences, its troops have cleared landmines and established new barriers on the frontier between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and a demilitarised strip bordering Syria, security sources and analysts said.
The move suggests Israel may seek to strike Hezbollah for the first time from further east along Lebanon’s border, at the same time creating a secure area from which it can freely reconnoitre the armed group and prevent infiltration, said the sources.
While demining activity has been reported, sources who spoke to Reuters — including a Syrian soldier stationed in south Syria, a Lebanese security official and a UN peacekeeping official — revealed additional unreported details that showed Israel was moving the fence separating the DMZ towards the Syrian side and digging more fortifications in the area.
Military action involving raids from the Israeli-occupied Golan and possibly from the demilitarised zone that separates it from Syrian territory could widen the conflict pitting Israel against Hezbollah and its ally Hamas that has already drawn in Iran and risks sucking in the US.
Israel has been trading fire with Tehran-backed Hezbollah since the group began launching missiles across Lebanon’s border in support of Hamas after its deadly attack on southern Israel triggered Israel’s military campaign on Gaza.
Now, in addition to Israeli aerial strikes that have caused Hezbollah significant damage in the past month, the group is under Israeli ground assault from the south and faces Israeli naval shelling from the Mediterranean to the west.
By extending its front in the east, Israel could tighten its squeeze on Hezbollah’s arms supply routes, some of which cut across Syria, Lebanon’s eastern neighbour and an ally of Iran.
Navvar Saban, a conflict analyst at the Istanbul-based Harmoon Center, said the operations in the Golan, a hilly, 1,200 square km plateau that also overlooks Lebanon and borders Jordan, appeared to be an attempt to “prepare the groundwork” for a broader offensive in Lebanon.
“Everything happening in Syria is to serve Israel’s strategy in Lebanon — hitting supply routes, hitting warehouses, hitting people linked to the supply lines to Hezbollah,” he said.
Israel’s mine removal and engineering works have accelerated in recent weeks, according to a Syrian intelligence officer, a Syrian soldier positioned in southern Syria, and three senior Lebanese security sources who spoke to Reuters for this story.
All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their monitoring of Israel’s military operations in the Golan, most of which was seized by Israel from Syria in 1967.
The Syrian soldier stationed in the south said Israel was pushing the fence separating the occupied Golan and the demilitarised zone (DMZ) further out and erecting fortifications near Syria “so there would not be any infiltration in the event this front flares up”.
The soldier said Israel appeared to be creating “a buffer zone” in the DMZ. A second senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Israeli troops had dug a new trench near the DMZ in October.
One senior Lebanese security source said the demining operations could allow Israeli troops to “encircle” Hezbollah from the east.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt urge truce in Gaza and Lebanon
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi agreed to deepen trade and investment cooperation and called for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon in talks in Cairo on Tuesday.
Egypt’s presidency said the leaders signed an agreement to encourage and protect mutual investments between the countries and witnessed the signing of an accord to form a supreme coordination council between Riyadh and Cairo to deepen cooperation.
The visit was taking place amid speculation about potential Saudi investments in Egypt, which has received a major influx of external financing this year including a record $35-billion deal with UAE sovereign fund ADQ.
The crown prince, known as MbS, made his last official visit to Egypt in 2022. Saudi Arabia, which has provided financial support to Sisi’s Egypt in the past, later indicated it was shifting towards investing rather than providing direct aid to allies.
Tuesday’s presidency statement said the two leaders reviewed efforts to develop the economic partnership between Cairo and Riyadh, particularly in investment, trade and economic integration in the energy, transport and tourism sectors.
The leaders also discussed regional developments, particularly the situations in Gaza and Lebanon, the presidency said, adding that “they demanded to start taking steps to reach calm that include a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon”. DM
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