Key points
- The US says Israel has the opportunity to prevent Lebanon from facing the same destruction as Gaza.
- US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held their first telephone conversation in weeks.
- Israel says it carried out airstrikes north of the Sidon coast, killing four people and wounding another 10.
Israel should avoid conducting military operations in Lebanon as it has done in Gaza, the US State Department said, while also expressing concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“I make it very clear that there should be no military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and produces a result that looks anything like Gaza,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. journalists.
Miller was responding to a question about a video released by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
“You have the chance to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
“I say to you, the people of Lebanon: Free your land from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
Biden and Netanyahu are talking to each other for the first time in weeks
US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke on the phone for the first time in weeks, a conversation that came as Israel expanded its ground incursion into Lebanon and considered how to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack.
Biden’s call Wednesday with Netanyahu was “direct” and “productive” and included discussions about a possible attack on Iran, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“It took 30 minutes. It was instant, it was productive,” Jean-Pierre said.
It was the first conversation between Biden and Netanyahu since August 21.
Escalation in Lebanon
Israel launched airstrikes north of Sidon, including on targets far from the border battle zone.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said four people were killed and 10 injured in a strike in the city of Wardaniyeh.
Israel has said troops from as many as four divisions have operated in Lebanon since the ground operation was first announced on October 1.
The bombing of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most of them in the past two weeks, and driven 1.2 million from their homes.
Hezbollah has been launching rockets against Israel for a year, parallel to the Gaza war.
The Iran-backed group said it had fired several rocket salvos at Israeli forces near the village of Labbouneh in the western part of the border area, close to the Mediterranean coast, and had managed to push them back.
Further east, Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli soldiers in the village of Maroun al-Ras and unleashed rocket attacks on Israeli forces advancing towards the twin border villages of Mays al-Jabal and Mouhaybib.
Israel says it will continue attacking Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israelis can return to the homes they fled under Hezbollah rocket fire.
Israel’s international law ‘obligation’
Miller said separately that the US is “particularly concerned” about the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, where the territory’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces have intensified shelling and closed roads, hampering aid deliveries.
“We have made it clear to the government of Israel that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to ensure that food, water and other necessary humanitarian assistance reach all parts of Gaza.”
With additional reporting from Reuters.
DEKYAS NEWS World Breaking News and Trusted Source
