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Hizbollah’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said yesterday the Iran-backed group would inflict ‘pain’ on Israel but he also called for a ceasefire as a conflict rages between them in south Lebanon.
Israel has been turning up the heat on Hizbollah since it began incursions into the region after killing Hizbollah leaders and commanders, including its veteran secretary general Hassan Nasrallah last month in the biggest blow to the group in decades.
“The solution is a ceasefire, we are not speaking from a position of weakness, if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue,” Qassem said in a recorded speech.
“But after the ceasefire, according to an indirect agreement, the settlers would return to the north and other steps will be drawn up.”
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which says its operation in Lebanon aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel because of Hizbollah attacks.
Qassem said Hizbollah reserved the right to attack anywhere in Israel because its enemy has done the same in Lebanon. He said more Israelis will be displaced and ‘hundreds of thousands, even more than two million, will be in danger at any time, at any hour, on any day’.
“We will focus on targeting the Israeli military and its centers and barracks,” he said.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to attack Hizbollah “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Israel has issued military evacuation orders affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, the UN refugee agency said yesterday, two weeks after the Israeli military began incursions into south Lebanon to battle Hizbollah.
The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel tries to destroy the group’s infrastructure in their conflict, which resumed a year ago when it began firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza to avoid legal action involving US military aid, according to news reports and sources.
The US told the UN Security Council last week that Israel needs to address urgently “catastrophic conditions” among civilians in Gaza and stop limiting aid deliveries.
The UN refugee agency’s Middle East director, Rema Jamous Imseis, said new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant over a quarter of the country was now affected.
“People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” she told a briefing in Geneva.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, the Lebanese health ministry said, and more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced.
The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The health ministry said 41 people were killed and 124 were wounded on Monday.
Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed, according to Israel.
Israel expanded its bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 22 people in a strike in the north on a house where displaced people were sheltering, health officials said.
“What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children,” UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said of the strike on Christian-majority Aitou.
He called for an investigation into the strike which he said has raised concerns with respect to “the laws of war”.
Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble in Aitou yesterday, local media reported.
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