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Violence along Israel-Lebanon border is a deep political issue in Israel
US special adviser Amos Hochstein has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is set to meet with Israeli minister Benny Gantz, who quit Netanyahu’s emergency government last week.
The meetings are part of what the White House says is an attempt to stop further escalation along the Blue Line, the unofficial border between Israel and Lebanon. There’s been a huge uptick in violence, fighting, and exchanges of rockets across that border in the last week or so.
The border is a political issue in Israel because about 60,000 people evacuated from towns and villages there since October. In the last 24 hours, an Israeli military spokesman said Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has disbanded the war cabinet that was formed as part of an emergency government in the days after October 7, essentially to give this idea of national unity as Israel launched its war on Gaza.
Gantz’s departure from the cabinet left Netanyahu exposed to demands from Itamar Ben-Gvir and other far-right ministers demanding to be let into this war cabinet. Rather than let them do that, Netanyahu has just disbanded it.
Israel’s war cabinet dissolution may escalate aggression in Gaza, Lebanon
Alon Liel, a former director of Israel’s foreign ministry and former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, has told Al Jazeera that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet dissolution may escalate aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.
More on Israel’s attack on car in Lebanon’s Chehabiyeh
We have reported earlier that an Israeli drone attacked a car on the outskirts of southern Lebanon’s Chehabiyeh, reportedly killing a man.
Hezbollah now confirms that one of its members, Muhammad Mustafa Ayoub, also known as Jalal, was killed in that attack. He was 45 years old, the Lebanese armed group said in a statement on Telegram.
