Israelis and Lebanese civilians must be able to safely live in their border communities, US President Joe Biden told reports on Friday, as the US insisted diplomacy was still the most viable path forward.
He spoke as Israel pivoted in the direction of a military resolution with the targeted IDF assignation of Radwan Force commander and head of Hezbollah Operations, Ibrahim Aqil, in Beirut.
“We’ve tried from the beginning to make sure that the people of northern Israel, as well as southern Lebanon, are able to get back to their homes and go back safely,” Biden told reporters at the start of his cabinet meeting at the White House on Friday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and “Our whole team is working with the intelligence community to try and get it done, and we are going to keep at it until we get it done, but we have a ways to go,” Biden said.
Israel’s military spokesperson said that about ten senior Hezbollah commanders were killed along with Aqil, leader of the movement’s Radwan special forces unit, who was attacked in an Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday, Israel’s military spokesperson said.
Smoke rises from Beirut southern suburbs, Lebanon September 20, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR)
Protection for the citizens of Israel
“This elimination is intended to protect the citizens of Israel,” he said in a brief statement to the press, adding that Israel was not seeking regional escalation.
An Israeli official, however, told The Jerusalem Post that the IDF had ratcheted up its military activities against Hezbollah in the aftermath of the security cabinet decision earlier this week to expand the war’s goal to include the return of the more than 60,000 Israelis to their border communities.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday the “new phase of the war will continue until we achieve our goal: ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes.”
“We will continue pursuing our enemies in order to defend our citizens – even in the Dahieh in Beirut,” he said.It’s presumed that Israeli civilians can only return home once Hezbollah has been pushed back to the Litani River as outlined.
Earlier in the week, an unusual series of explosions that targeted beepers, radios, and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters were set off across Lebanon, killing 37 people, including at least two children, and injuring more than 3,000 people, many of whom were members of Hezbollah.
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Israel has not claimed responsibility for the beeper explosions, but is widely presumed that it is responsible for those attacks. In light of the escalating military situation in northern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed his departure for the United Nations until Wednesday, when he expected to address the high-level opening of the UN General Assembly on Thursday. The security cabinet is expected to meet on Sunday.
US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters on Friday that the US was not involved in IDF military attacks on Lebanon, including the one that killed Aqil. The US had also previously denied any involvement in the beeper explosions.
“There was no US involvement,” Kirby said, adding that “we believe that there is still time and space for diplomacy to work.”
“We don’t want to see escalation. We don’t want to see a second war, a second front in this war opened up at the border with Lebanon,” Kirby stressed, adding that “everything we’re doing is going to be involved in trying to prevent that outcome.”
“There is no reason for an expanded military conflict in Lebanon to be inevitable,” Kirby stated.
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