As America Increases Pressure on Hezbollah, France and the UN Condemn Israel for Lebanon Airstrikes

While France and the United Nations condemn Israel for its most extensive airstrikes in Lebanon since a cease-fire agreement was reached last November, America is raising pressure on Hezbollah.“We have always appealed for Israel to leave the posts it still has in Lebanon and respect the territorial integrity of Lebanon,” the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, told the Sun Friday. “And we have always appealed for the support of the international community to the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese armed forces, in order for them to fully guarantee the sovereignty of the country.”In a seeming afterthought, Mr. Guterres then added, “And the security of Israel.”Early Friday morning two rockets were shot from Lebanon toward the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. One rocket was intercepted by the Israeli Defense Force, and the other fell on the Lebanese side of the border. No damage was recorded. The attack followed several similar incidents in the last few weeks. The Israeli air force then completely destroyed a building housing a drone factory at southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, a Hezbollah stronghold. The strikes followed several warnings for residents to evacuate the area. The IDF also enacted a “knock on roof” procedure: small bomblets on a building to signal to its inhabitants to evacuate before heavier bombs fall.Beirut residents fled the area in fear, and five people were killed in the strikes, per Lebanese sources. “That the IDF is striking a Hezbollah drone factory in the Dahiyeh points to a Lebanese violation of all the relevant UN resolutions,” the founder of the Alma research center in northern Israel, Sarit Zehavi, tells the Sun. She commends the IDF’s powerful response to the recent “drip-drip” rocket launches, but is calling for “international pressure on the Lebanese government to fundamentally change its relation with Hezbollah.”For whatever it’s worth, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the rocket launches, as did the government at Beirut. Yet, “that’s like Israel saying ‘it wasn’t us, it’s just our air force,’” a former top IDF pilot, Neri Yarkoni, told Kan News.“If there is no peace in Kiryat Shmona and the Galilee communities, there will be no peace in Beirut,” the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement. “For every attempt to harm the Galilee communities, the roofs of houses in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut will tremble. I am sending a clear message to the Lebanese government: If you do not enforce the ceasefire agreement, we will.”Some Israelis, though, are demanding more. “When Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist arm, fires at Israel, Israel needs to respond at Tehran,” a former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, writes on X. In the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Israel and Hezbollah have established a tacit agreement under which exchanges of fire are mostly confined to the Galilee and southern Lebanon. That unwritten rule was finally broken last fall. Following the now-famous beeper attack, the IDF pummeled Hezbollah’s strongholds. It also killed the organization’s senior leadership, including its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah has been significantly weakened, and Tehran has struggled to replenish its former most prized proxy. New American sanctions announced Friday are part of President Trump’s “policy of maximum pressure on Iran and its terrorist proxies, like Hizbollah,” according to a Department of State statement. America is “committed to supporting Lebanon by exposing and disrupting funding schemes for Hizbollah’s terrorist activities and Iran’s destabilizing influence in the region. Hizbollah cannot be allowed to keep Lebanon captive.”The former colonialist power in Lebanon, France, denounced Israel instead, and expressed “solidarity” with the people of Lebanon.“We have not received any information regarding Hezbollah military activity in the south, and nothing justifies the Israeli bombing of the Beirut suburb,” President Macon said. “The Lebanese state’s efforts to monopolize arms control have begun to yield results,” he added. “I believe Lebanon is now on the right track.”Israeli Galilee residents, though, report an uptick in recent activity in southern Lebanon’s Shiite villages, where Hezbollah is quietly attempting to retake its former positions, in violation of the cease-fire agreement. Beirut, meanwhile, hardly seems able, or eager, to enforce UN resolutions that demand the disarming of all non-government militias, like Hezbollah. “Instead of investigating why drone factories are placed at the heart of Beirut, the Lebanese government is condemning Israel,” Ms. Zehavi says. “It would be too bad if Lebanon missed a chance Israel provided for Lebanon to improve its future by getting rid of Hezbollah.”

As America Increases Pressure on Hezbollah, France and the UN Condemn Israel for Lebanon Airstrikes

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