Netanyahu orders bombing of Beirut suburbs amid Lebanon escalation

Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the Israeli military to bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut, the most serious escalation of Israel’s war in Lebanon since a supposed ceasefire was announced on 17 April.

The Israeli prime minister and his defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Monday they had given instructions to strike “terrorist targets” in the southern suburbs for what they called “repeated and ongoing violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah”.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has not stopped despite the 17 April ceasefire, and Israeli strikes have killed more than 800 people in Lebanon since its announcement. Hezbollah has targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, and in recent days, launched rockets towards northern Israel.

The ceasefire was previously understood to exempt Beirut from Israeli strikes, though Israel has struck the southern suburbs twice in what is still a reduction from the daily bombing of the capital before 17 April.

People began to leave the southern suburbs minutes after Netanyahu’s statement, with roads leading out of the area choked with cars. The displacement was a familiar one; residents there have been forced out of their homes several times over the last three months.

More than a million people have been displaced because of Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, as well as the dozens of forced evacuation orders the Israeli military has placed on towns and villages across Lebanon.

On Sunday, the Israeli military captured the medieval Beaufort castle in southern Lebanon, the deepest it has reached since its 18-year occupation of the region ended in 2000. It also bombarded Tyre, levelling entire buildings in some of the most violent airstrikes yet on the southern city.

Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to push even further into the country.

“Now my directive is to deepen and expand our hold in places that were under Hezbollah’s control,” Netanyahu said in a statement released after the capture of the castle. “We have returned united, determined and stronger than ever.”

Hezbollah remained defiant, announcing operations on Sunday against what it said were Israeli soldiers stationed outside Beaufort castle. The Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah blamed the Lebanese government for the escalation on Sunday, saying it “has proven the failure of the direct negotiation option”.

European leaders have condemned Israel’s expansion into Lebanon. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called for an end to the fighting, saying “nothing justifies the major escalation under way in south Lebanon”. His foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, requested a meeting of the UN security council for Monday.

The foreign ministers of the UK and Germany joined France in condemning the new operation. Britain’s Yvette Cooper called for the US-brokered ceasefire to be respected.

The current conflict began in March, after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israel in retaliation for the US-Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader. Since then, more than 3,300 people, including children and first responders, have been killed in Lebanon. Hezbollah strikes since 2 March have killed two people in Israel and more than 20 soldiers and one contractor in southern Lebanon.

The prime minister, Nawaf Salam, on Saturday accused Israel of “implementing a policy of total destruction of cities and towns”.

Netanyahu has called the capture of Beaufort castle a “dramatic shift” in the campaign against Hezbollah. Israeli forces used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a base during their occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.

The castle offers views across Lebanon and into northern Israel. It was built as a crusader castle around the 12th century and later occupied by Saladin’s Jerusalem army, the Ottomans, the French and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Some experts have questioned the strategic significance of the capture, and said it amounted to little more than a public relations coup.

The military’s presence there would not solve the issue with Hezbollah, Orna Mizrahi, a former deputy director in Israel’s national security council, told the Associated Press. “We are damaging them in the operations, but in parallel we need to pursue a political and diplomatic solution,” Mizrahi said.

Talks between senior officials from Israel and Lebanon began in April in Washington, the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations. Those discussions were scheduled to continue this week. Hezbollah is not taking part and has said it will not accept any results.

Israel’s latest advance and the continuing violence in Lebanon present a challenge in efforts to secure a lasting peace agreement between the US and Iran. Tehran has continued to insist that any agreement to extend the current ceasefire with Washington and return shipping to the strait of Hormuz must include an end to fighting in Lebanon.

Observers have suggested Israeli officials and military commanders want to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before a potential deal imposes new limits or stops the current offensive.

With Agence France-Presse