Israel wants dismantling of Hezbollah altogether
France really doesn’t have much influence to affect the course of this conflict.
Everyone here will tell you it is the Biden administration. But at the same time, the feeling here is that the Biden administration is supporting Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.
The US sees this as Israel’s right to self-defence, and many believe that this escalation is not about de-escalating the conflict or using military pressure to reach some sort of settlement.
Many believe that the strategy is to escalate the situation to victory and that means that Israel is no longer interested in the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, which it has been demanding from Hezbollah so that it pulls its forces back from the border.
Now it wants more. It wants a second part of this resolution. It wants the dismantling of Hezbollah altogether. And that’s the real concern here – that Israel does not want a ceasefire and what it wants is a total victory against a group it sees as their biggest threat on their borders.
Israel says it will not agree to ceasefire in Lebanon until Hezbollah disarms
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz says the government will not agree to a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. “The only way that is acceptable for Israel to stop the fire is to move Hezbollah north of the Litani and disarm it,” Katz was reported as saying.
The implementation of all UN Security Council resolutions is also required for a ceasefire in Lebanon, he added.
“As long as these do not occur, Israel will continue its actions to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel and the return of the residents of the north to their homes.” Katz added that Nasrallah’s assassination was one of the most justified countermeasures Israel has ever carried out, and that he was planning more attacks against Israel.
There's a clear example of how to achieve peace, see Ireland and the IRA. It's not by bombing the population.
‘All the people Israel is killing are children and women’
As we’ve been reporting, Israeli raids in Lebanon have killed at least 136 people in the last 24 hours.
In the southern city of Tyre, six people were killed. Relatives of the victims say most of them were women and children.
Families dug graves to bury their loved ones amid continuous bombardment.
“We still have people under the rubble. An elderly man, a 70-year-old woman, a 90-year-old man. Most of those killed are women and children, and a Lebanese army member, his parents, his sister-in-law, and his brother were martyred,” Sawsan Halawi, one of those wounded in the attack and a relative of a person killed, said.
“All the people Israel is killing are children and women. They are turning us into a second Gaza. We tell Israel: We are not scared of you or your weapons, as long as God is with us.”
Israel feeling invincible following strikes on several fronts
Israel is feeling emboldened and invincible. It is seemingly not going only after Hezbollah and Hamas but now the head of the PLFP. This is not a major Palestinian faction but part of the Palestinian fabric.
We also had the strikes in Yemen and Syria. Israel seems to be going after a list of targets not necessarily linked to just Hezbollah and Hamas.
Of course, there is a real danger of regional escalation. The rhetoric coming out of Israel is it’s not going to stop, and it’s not going to be stopped. No ceasefire in the north, no ceasefire in Gaza and it’s going to continue.
The question is how long it’s going to continue and at what point there will be severe retaliation because we haven’t seen that yet.
