‘Living Hell’: Hezbollah Threatens IDF Ahead of Israel-Lebanon Peace Talks

Israel and Hezbollah ramped up attacks against each other in recent days as the terror group threatened to make southern Lebanon a “living hell” for the IDF ahead of another round of Israel-Lebanon peace talks in Washington on Thursday. Hezbollah fired several rockets at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, while the IDF said it struck more than infrastructure sites belonging to the terror group in the past 24 hours. The IDF said it attacked a number of “ready-to-use launchers aimed toward Israeli territory and eliminated terrorists that posed a threat to IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon.”The Israeli army also issued fresh evacuation orders for seven villages in southern Lebanon ahead of new strikes. “In light of the Hezbollah terror organization’s violations of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF is forced to act against it with force and does not intend to harm you,” said the IDF’s Arabic spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee. As Beirut and Jerusalem prepared for talks in Washington, Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, and president, Joseph Aoun, both met with US Ambassador Michel Issa on Monday. Mr. Salam said he told Mr. Issa to “exert pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing attacks and violations, in order to consolidate the ceasefire.”Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem, meanwhile, repeated his call on Beirut to withdraw from the direct negotiations, “which are pure gains for Israel and free concessions by the Lebanese authorities.”The bilateral peace talks between Israel and its northern neighbor center partly around how to disarm Hezbollah, to which the terror group’s leader is fiercely opposed. “No one outside Lebanon has any say in the weapons, the resistance, or the organization of Lebanon’s internal affairs,” Mr. Qassem said on Tuesday. “This is an internal Lebanese matter and not part of negotiations with the enemy.” Hezbollah won’t surrender and will fight “no matter how long it takes,” he vowed. “We will not abandon the battlefield, and we will turn it into a living hell for Israel.”On Tuesday, the IDF announced it had killed 15 members of Hezbollah who posed a threat to Israeli soldiers as they operated near them. More than 350 members of Hezbollah were killed in recent weeks, according to the IDF. More than 2,000 Hezbollah members have been killed since the terror group launched its war against Israel on March 2, the IDF said. Lebanon’s health ministry says more than 2,869 people have been killed in Israeli strikes. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

‘Living Hell’: Hezbollah Threatens IDF Ahead of Israel-Lebanon Peace Talks

‘Living Hell’: Hezbollah Threatens IDF Ahead of Israel-Lebanon Peace Talks

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