Israel and Hezbollah traded barbs and warned that their war was not over in the hours that followed an IDF preemptive strike that took out the Iranian proxy group’s missiles and drones before they could hit central Israel early Sunday morning.
”What happened today is not the end of the story,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his weekly government meeting.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech on Sunday evening said that the group’s military operation had ended and “we’ll see what will happen in the future,” based on a translation by GTV.
The crippling IDF attack came after 10 months of a cross-border war concurrent with the Gaza war. Thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians have been prevented from living in their homes in that area since October due to the conflict.
Israel had braced for almost a month for a Hezbollah retaliatory attack after it assassinated its commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30. It has also expected a retaliatory strike from Iran for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran a day later, even though Israel has not claimed responsibility for his death.
Netanyahu referenced the Hezbollah commander’s assassination, stating, “Three weeks ago, we eliminated its Chief-of-Staff and today we thwarted its attack plan.”
He warned that Nasrallah and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran “need to know that this is an additional step in changing the situation in the North, and returning our residents securely to their homes.”
The international community called for restraint
The international community called for restraint and the United States said it backed Israel’s right to self-defense.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown met on Sunday night. Brown is making his way through Jordan, Israel, and Egypt in an attempt to solidify the air defense alliance against a potential large Iranian attack and to advance a Gaza war ceasefire-hostage deal.
KAN reported that US intelligence helped thwart the Hezbollah attack, but was not involved in the Israeli operation itself.
Netanyahu told his government on Sunday that “Hezbollah tried to attack the State of Israel with rockets and drones.” As a result, he said, “We directed the IDF to carry out an intense preemptive attack to remove the threat.
“The IDF destroyed thousands of short-range rockets, all of which were designed to attack our citizens and our forces in the Galilee,” he said.
“The IDF intercepted all of the drones that Hezbollah launched at a strategic target in the center of the country,” he said. “We are striking Hezbollah with surprising crushing blows.”
Nasrallah said his group was still assessing the impact of the IDF attack as he claimed that his group’s drones and missiles had caused damage to Israel, covered up by Netanyahu’s government.
If the operation has achieved its goal, he said, then “we consider the retaliation” has taken place, and if not, “we reserve the right to respond later on.”
In the meantime, he said, people can “relax and go back to their homes.”
He pledged that Hezbollah would not give up on the battle it “started 11 months ago. … We will not abandon Gaza, nor the people of Gaza, nor the resistance in Gaza, nor Palestine, nor the people of Palestine.”
Nasrallah explained that Hezbollah had in part planned its strike for the morning of a US summit in Cairo for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
It had initially delayed its response, he said, first to examine whether to act jointly with Iran and because he had hoped that a Gaza ceasefire would be implemented.
But it turns out the timeline had been protracted and the US is not serious about ending the war, Nasrallah said.“Our operations today, in any case,” might help the “Palestinians or the Arabs who are negotiating with the Palestinian team” in Cairo, he said.
The message to Hezbollah’s enemies and their backers, the Americans, is that “any hopes to silence these supportive battlefronts [united with Hamas] be it in Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq… are futile,” he said.
National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said that US President Joe Biden “is closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon” and has been engaged with his “national security team.” At Biden’s direction, senior US officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts, Savett explained. “We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability,” Savett said.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant updated US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about the strike and Netanyahu spoke with Israel’s security cabinet early in the morning.
Gallant told Austin, “We have conducted precise strikes in Lebanon in order to thwart an imminent threat against the citizens of Israel. We are closely following developments in Beirut, and we are determined to use all the means at our disposal in order to defend our citizens.”
Gallant and Austin discussed the importance of avoiding regional escalation, the Defense Ministry said.Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he had sent a message to dozens of his counterparts “urging them to support Israel against the Iranian axis of evil and its proxies, led by Hezbollah.”
“We do not seek a full-scale war – but we will do whatever it takes to protect our citizens,” he said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the significant increase in the exchanges of fire across the Blue Line. These actions put both the Lebanese and Israeli populations at risk, as well as threatening regional security and stability.”
He called for an “immediate de-escalation and on the parties to urgently and immediately return to a cessation of hostilities, as well as for the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from 2006 that set out the terms of the ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War.
Two United Nations offices, that of the special coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL) and its interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) issued a similar call.
Egypt, one of the mediators in Gaza ceasefire talks, warned against the dangers of a new war front opening in Lebanon.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group congratulated its ally Hezbollah on what it called a “great and brave” attack on Israel.Reuters and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.
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