Negotiating with Israel would be surrender, says Hezbollah

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Wednesday that negotiating with Israel under fire would amount to “surrender” for Lebanon, as Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces were “expanding” a “buffer zone” in Lebanon.

Netanyahu said the Israeli military had “created a genuine security zone” inside Lebanon and was “expanding this zone,” as its ground forces tried to push deeper into Lebanon, on a day when Hezbollah issued dozens of statements claiming attacks on Israeli forces.

Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for around two decades until 2000, has once again sent ground troops into Lebanon, saying it is attempting to take control of the area up to the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border.

As the two sides fought in the south, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon”, a comparison previously drawn by Israeli officials talking about their goals in Lebanon.

“Hezbollah must stop launching attacks into Israel. And Israel must stop its military operations and strikes in Lebanon, which are hitting civilians the hardest,” Guterres told reporters at the United Nations.

By late on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it had launched more than 80 attacks against Israel, the largest number the Iran-backed group has claimed since the start of the latest war.

It also said it had attacked Israeli forces in nine border towns.

Israel’s military said that one of its soldiers was severely wounded by rocket fire in southern Lebanon, having earlier reported an officer being lightly injured in combat.

It also reported several rockets fired towards the Haifa area in northern Israel, but no injuries.

– ‘Imposition of surrender’ –

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In an attempt to put an end to the fighting, Lebanon’s president is calling for unprecedented direct negotiations with Israel, which has so far rebuffed his proposal.

Hezbollah chief Qassem said Wednesday his group would have none of it: “When negotiations with the Israeli enemy are proposed under fire, this is an imposition of surrender.”

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in several locations in the south on Wednesday.

It also said that “enemy warplanes… launched a strike” on Beirut’s southern suburbs, after a renewed Israeli army evacuation warning.

An AFP correspondent saw a street covered in debris, including shattered cement and warped metal, after the early morning strike, while an apartment building’s upper floors appeared damaged.

The area has been targeted multiple times during the conflict and is largely empty of residents, who have fled.

Late on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry reported three people killed by an Israeli airstrike in the Bint Jbeil region of southern Lebanon.

Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets across Lebanon overnight “including a command centre” in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

It also said it attacked petrol stations belonging to the Al-Amana fuel company, which it says is controlled by Hezbollah and finances the group.

– Paramedics killed –

According to the ministry, 42 health workers are among more than 1,000 people killed in Lebanon in more than three weeks of Israeli strikes

Lebanese authorities say upwards of one million people have been displaced.

Hezbollah said its fighters on Wednesday targeted Israeli troops “massed in the border towns of Naqura and Qawzah” and in sites across the border “with more than 100 rockets”.

The statement came as the group claimed a series of attacks on Israeli troops in south Lebanon, northern Israel, and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In an earlier statement, Israel’s military said ground troops in southern Lebanon had “dismantled a weapons storage facility”, and the air force killed “several terrorists”.

It also said troops had “dismantled Hezbollah command centres in which numerous weapons were located”, without specifying where.

AFP