Hezbollah border presence impacted by strikes in Lebanon, Israel says

Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel at the border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Lebanon’s capital Beirut would be turned ‘into Gaza’ if Hezbollah started an all-out war

1-MIN READ1-MIN

An armoured vehicle of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrols in Khiyam plain, near the border with Israel, in Lebanon on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 4:26am, 30 Dec 2023

Israel has completed a series of extensive strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, a military spokesman said on Friday, attacks which have impacted the Iran-backed group’s positioning near the border.

“We continue intensive strikes to hit Hezbollah’s deployment close to the northern border,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement. “It no longer looks as it did on October sixth, nor will it.”

Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel at the border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, igniting a conflict that has drawn in the heavily armed group and other Iran-aligned factions across the Middle East.

But the violence has largely been contained to areas at the border, shaped by what observers have called unwritten rules of engagement between adversaries that have long threatened each other with catastrophic damage in the event of war.

Israel has said it is not seeking to open a front in the north. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Lebanon’s capital Beirut would be turned “into Gaza” if Hezbollah started an all-out war.