TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) — Israel's defense minister vowed Sunday to step up attacks on the militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon even if there is a ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah, which has fought a firefight with Israel throughout Gaza's war, has said it will stop its almost daily attacks on Israel if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said anyone who thinks a temporary ceasefire for Gaza will also apply to the northern front is “mistaken.”
“We will continue to fire and do so regardless of the south until we achieve our objectives,” Gallant said. He said there was a simple goal: to push Hezbollah from Israel's border, whether through a diplomatic agreement or by force.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after Hamas sparked fighting in Gaza with a deadly attack along Israel's southern border from the Gaza Strip on October 7. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have been displaced by the continuing cycle of Hezbollah rocket and rocket attacks as well as Israeli air strikes and artillery fire.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech earlier this month that the group would stick to a ceasefire in southern Lebanon if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza. However, he said attacks would resume and escalate if Israel continued its attacks in Lebanon after reaching an agreement with Hamas.
A Lebanese security official said on Sunday that five Hezbollah members were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on trucks in the border area between Lebanon and Syria. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to journalists. Hezbollah said three of its fighters were killed but did not specify the location.
The Israeli military did not acknowledge the attacks on the Lebanese-Syrian border, but said it had attacked several locations in southern Lebanon in response to rocket fires and targeted a “terror cell” in the town of Blida.
Gallant said Israel's attacks on Hezbollah commanders have significantly weakened the group's ability to attack Israel.
About 200 Hezbollah fighters and 35 civilians in Lebanon have been killed in nearly five months of daily low-level clashes between the Lebanese militant group and Israeli forces against the backdrop of Israel's war with Hamas, a Hezbollah ally. In Israel, nine soldiers and nine civilians were killed in Hezbollah attacks.
Most of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has been confined to the area a few kilometers on either side of the border.
Diplomats from the US and European countries have put forward a series of proposals in the hope of reaching an agreement that would contain the border conflict.
The ideas are mainly based on a Hezbollah withdrawal a few kilometers from the border, an increased presence of the Lebanese army in the border region and negotiations on border points where Lebanon claims Israel has held small areas of the Lebanese since the withdrawal of its forces from the region Territory occupied remainder of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Ultimately, the plans could lead to a demarcation of the land border between Lebanon and Israel, following the maritime border agreement in 2022.
The latest of those proposals put forward by France would call for a withdrawal of Hezbollah troops 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, said a Lebanese government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the negotiations.
Lebanon is still considering the proposal, and Hezbollah officials have indicated they are willing to consider it, but both government and Hezbollah officials have said there will be no agreement on the border until Gaza a ceasefire comes.
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Sewell reported from Beirut.