- The United States calls for an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah as the conflict escalates with airstrikes and rising civilian casualties
Beirut: The United States said it wanted the war between Israel and Hezbollah to end “as quickly as possible” and pressed for the implementation of a UN resolution obligating the Iranian-backed Hezbollah to withdraw from southern Lebanon.
The call by Israel’s largest ally came as Israeli forces escalated their nearly month-long war in Lebanon, including targeting a financial group linked to Hezbollah, and continuing to bomb Gaza more than a year into the war there.
As the fighting intensified, US envoy Amos Hochstein, visiting the Lebanese capital, said that Washington wanted to see the conflict in Lebanon end “as soon as possible.”
“Linking Lebanon’s future to other conflicts in the region was not and will not be in the interest of the Lebanese people,” Hochstein said, referring to a key Hezbollah demand that any ceasefire in Lebanon be linked to an end to the war in Gaza.
Hochstein also said that while UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, should be the basis for a new ceasefire, the parties have not done enough to implement it since then.
Under Resolution 1701, only the Lebanese Army and the United Nations peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) could deploy in areas south of Lebanon’s Litani River near the Israeli border.
But Iran-backed Hezbollah remained in southern Lebanon and began launching low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israel last year in support of its Palestinian ally, Hamas.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to begin another Middle East tour in Israel on Tuesday, in a new push for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza as fears of a broader war persist.
Israel vowed to respond to an Iranian missile attack on October 1 – itself retaliation for the killing of senior militants – which put the region in a state of tension.
Israeli police announced on Monday that they had arrested a spy network of seven Israeli citizens for allegedly collecting information on Israeli military bases and energy infrastructure for Iranian intelligence.
The Syrian government said that two civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on the Diplomatic Quarter in the capital, Damascus, on Monday.
Israel expanded the scope of its war from Gaza to Lebanon last month, and pledged to continue fighting Hezbollah until it secures its northern borders to allow the return of those displaced by missiles.
Six people, including a child, were killed when an Israeli raid hit a building in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Monday, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
The commander of the Israeli army, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevy, said that his forces bombed during the past day about 30 targets linked to the Lebanese Al-Qard Al-Hassan financial company linked to Hezbollah, which Israel accused of financing the group’s weapons.
These strikes represent an expansion of the war that Israel has been waging with Hezbollah for nearly a month.
The UN Human Rights Office said the strikes caused “serious damage” to civilian property and infrastructure.
The Israeli army blew up homes in the border village of Aita al-Shaab on Monday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported, adding that violent clashes took place in southern Lebanon while the Israeli army was “trying to advance.”
Hezbollah said it fired a barrage of rockets at Israeli soldiers near the village.
The comprehensive war that has been ongoing for about a month has led to the deaths of at least 1,470 people in Lebanon, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on the Lebanese Ministry of Health figures.
In Gaza, the war broke out due to the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the killing of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official Israeli figures.
Israeli bombing and ground attacks in Gaza killed 42,603 people, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run Strip, figures that the United Nations considers reliable.