BEIRUT: Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire on Tuesday following deadly Israeli strikes on east Lebanon a day earlier, while a United Nations official called for an end to the “dangerous cycle of violence”.Israeli raids near east Lebanon’s Baalbek on Monday were the first in the area since hostilities began, and hit far beyond the usual border regions. The Israeli army said the strikes targeted Hezbollah air defences after the group downed an Israeli drone.

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, in a statement urged “an immediate halt to this dangerous cycle of violence and return to a cessation of hostilities”.

Hezbollah said it targeted the “Meron air control base... with a large salvo of rockets from several launchers”, in response to the Baalbek strikes. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said the rockets caused no casualties or damage to the base, while Israeli fighter jets raided and destroyed “a military site” and “military infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah in retaliation.

One of the strikes targeted Baisariyeh, almost 30 kilometres from the nearest Israeli boundary. Later, Hezbollah said it had targeted the same base again, as well as several other Israeli positions, one for the first time since hostilities started.

Lebanese group says it will halt fire if Hamas okays truce

Two Hezbollah fighters were killed in the east Lebanon strikes on Monday. Later that day, the Iran-backed group fired 60 rockets at an Israeli base in the annexed Golan Heights.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) warned of a “concerning shift in the exchanges of fire” in recent days and “an expansion and intensification of strikes”.

“Recent events have the potential to put at risk a political solution to this conflict,” the force said in a statement, urging “all parties involved to halt hostilities... and leave space to a political and diplomatic solution”.

A temporary truce between Hamas and Israel to allow for prisoner releases led to a week of calm across the Lebanese-Israeli border in late November. Hamas is now weighing a new proposal, agreed by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris last week, for a deal that would suspend fighting for 40 days, which would be the first extended pause of the five-month-old war.

Gaza truce

Lebanon’s Hezbollah will halt fire on Israel if its Palestinian ally Hamas agrees to a proposal for a truce with Israel in Gaza — unless Israeli forces keep shelling Lebanon, two sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said on Tuesday.

“The moment Hamas announces its approval of the truce, and the moment the truce is declared, Hezbollah will adhere to the truce and will stop operations in the south immediately, as happened the previous time,” one of the two sources close to the heavily group said.

But if Israel continued shelling Lebanon, Hezbollah would not hesitate to carry on fighting, both sources said.

In Lebanon, Israeli air and missile strikes have killed nearly 200 Hezbollah fighters and almost 50 civilians. Attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and half as many civilians. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the frontier.

Foreign envoys have sought to secure a diplomatic resolution to the fighting, reflecting worry about further escalation. Earlier this month, France delivered a written proposal to Beirut aimed at ending hostilities. It included negotiations to settle the disputed Lebanon-Israel frontier and a withdrawal of Hezbollah’s elite unit 10 km from the border.

Hezbollah, which exercises significant sway over the Lebanese state, has insisted it will discuss no arrangements for southern Lebanon until a permanent ceasefire has been agreed for Gaza.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant indicated that Israel planned to increase attacks on Hezbollah in the event of a possible ceasefire in the Gaza conflict. He said the goal was to secure a Hezbollah withdrawal from the border region, either through a diplomatic agreement or by force.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2024