JERUSALEM: Israel warned Sunday that its military would step up its attacks against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a day after the Lebanese health ministry reported four people killed in an Israeli air strike.
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular strikes.
“Hezbollah is playing with fire, and the president of Lebanon is dragging his feet,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“The Lebanese government’s commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern Lebanon must be implemented. Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify — we will not allow any threat to the residents of the north.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hezbollah was attempting to “rearm” itself.
“We expect the Lebanese government to fulfil its commitment — to disarm Hezbollah — but it is clear we will exercise our right of self-defence under the terms of ceasefire,” Netanyahu told the cabinet at its weekly meeting on Sunday.
“We will not allow Lebanon to become a renewed front against us, and we will act as necessary,” he said, according to a statement issued by his office.
Thousands of Israelis living near the northern border with Lebanon were forced to evacuate their homes for months after Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
That set off a more than year-long conflict that culminated in two months of open war before last year’s ceasefire was agreed.
The Iran-backed militant group, which opposes Israel, has been badly weakened by the war but remains armed and financially resilient.
In September 2024, Israel killed the group’s longtime chief, Hassan Nasrallah, along with many other senior leaders over the course of the war.
Since the ceasefire, the United States has increased pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the group, a move opposed by Hezbollah and its allies.
The Lebanese government has drawn up a plan to impose a state monopoly on weapons, and said the army has begun implementing it, starting in the country’s south.