PM confirms troops crossed Litani, as Pentagon hosts Israeli-Lebanon security talks |
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Friday that troops of the IDF’s 36th Division have crossed Lebanon’s Litani River, as Israeli and Lebanese military officials held a new round of talks in the US.
“Our forces crossed the Litani, and they’ve advanced to the dominating terrain,” Netanyahu said on a visit to troops on the northern border. “We’re also operating in Beirut, and in the Beqaa, across the entire front, and hitting Hezbollah hard.”
The comments came as Lebanese state media reported at least six people killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon on Friday, including a local police officer in the town of Ebba, north of the Litani River.
Meanwhile, the military said twice Friday morning that it intercepted suspected Hezbollah drones over areas where troops were operating in southern Lebanon. The suspected drones triggered sirens in the Israeli border communities of Shtula, Misgav Am and Margaliot.
The IDF had on Thursday struck Beirut for the first time in three weeks, after mostly avoiding attacks on the Lebanese capital at the White House’s request amid the fragile ceasefires in Lebanon and Iran that US President Donald Trump announced last month. The military also struck Hezbollah targets in the terror group’s eastern Beqaa heartland and elsewhere in south Lebanon, killing at least 14 people, according to local officials.
In recent days, Israel has issued repeated evacuation warnings to swathes of the southern coastal city of Tyre and carried out heavy strikes there as well.
On a visit to an IDF post on the Lebanese side of Mount Dov, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Friday that “even at these moments, our forces are advancing and operating,” according to remarks provided by the military.
“There is unprecedented cumulative damage here to Hezbollah, from thousands of terrorists to senior and mid-level commanders,” he said.
He added that the IDF’s “forward defense line” in southern Lebanon, demarcating its security zone, “does not limit us.”
“Wherever we identify a threat and wherever we are required to remove a threat, we will act. Wherever there is an operational need to maneuver, we will maneuver,” he said.
“Every strike against Hezbollah is also a strike against the Iranian axis and the Iranian investment in the region,” said Zamir. “We are prepared for any development and remain at a high level of readiness against Iran as well.”
The military confirmed Thursday that ground troops have, over the past several days, conducted raids beyond the military’s “forward defense line,” in addition to the airstrikes that have taken place beyond that line.
The defense line, which the IDF announced last month, demarcates the military’s declared security zone in southern Lebanon. The line lies mostly south of the Litani, which runs about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border and has long been Israel’s benchmark in the bid to push Hezbollah northward.
A military official said the IDF raids beyond the defense line seek to push Hezbollah farther from the border and better defend the security zone, amid the terror group’s increased, sometimes fatal use of first-person view (FPV) drones to attack troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
In a video statement Thursday, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin — who was wounded leading a tank battalion in the 2006 Lebanon war — said ground troops were operating “in places that I, as a battalion commander, was unable to........