BEIRUT: The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Tuesday that his armed group’s cross-border shelling into Israel would only end when Israel’s “aggression” on the Gaza Strip stops, saying diplomatic efforts so far to bring a halt to hostilities along Lebanon’s border seemed to only benefit Israel.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with the Israeli military across Lebanon’s southern border in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which launched a cross-border assault from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Oct. 7 that was met with heavy Israeli bombardment by land, air and sea.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group would only stop its exchanges of fire if a full ceasefire was reached for Gaza.
“On that day, when the shooting stops in Gaza, we will stop the shooting in the south,” he said in a televised address.
He said many foreign “delegations” had traveled to Beirut with “proposals” to end hostilities in southern Lebanon, but said they only seemed to “have one goal, which is: the security of Israel, the protection of Israel.”
The foreign ministers of France, Britain, and other countries have traveled to Lebanon in recent weeks in an attempt to bring calm to the border.
France’s foreign minister delivered a written proposal to Beirut that calls for fighters including Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit to withdraw 10 km (6 miles) from the border, among other measures, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Without specifying the French proposal, Nasrallah said one delegation had “presented a paper as a mediator.”
“You read the paper — there’s nothing. There’s Israel’s security,” he said.
Nasrallah said that if Israel widened the war further in Lebanon, his group would do the same.
The cross-border shelling has already killed around 200 people in Lebanon, including more than 170 Hezbollah fighters, as well as 10 Israeli troops and five Israeli civilians. It has also displaced tens of thousands of people in each country.
Nasrallah said residents of northern Israel “will not return” to their homes, and threatened that even more would be displaced.
Hezbollah chief says shelling on Israel will stop only when ‘aggression’ on Gaza ends
https://arab.news/vdkce
Hezbollah chief says shelling on Israel will stop only when ‘aggression’ on Gaza ends
- Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group would only stop its exchanges of fire if a full ceasefire was reached for Gaza
- “On that day, when the shooting stops in Gaza, we will stop the shooting in the south”
Israel says carrying out ‘large-scale strikes’ on Tehran
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it launched “large-scale strikes” on Tehran on Monday, two days since the start of a US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
“The Israeli Air Force... has begun an additional wave of strikes against the Iranian terror regime at the heart of Tehran,” the military said in a statement.
Israel announced the new “large-scale” strikes, while President Donald Trump vowed to avenge the deaths of US service members and said the war could last for weeks.
In other developments:
• The European Union has warned of the cost to the Middle East of a long war, and said it was reinforcing its naval mission in the Red Sea with additional vessels as Iran’s retaliation to US-Israeli strikes threatens maritime traffic, a European diplomat said.
Two new French ships will join the EU’s Aspides mission, bringing to five the number of warships taking part, the diplomat told AFP.
• Gulf states vowed to defend themselves against Iranian attacks, including by “responding to the aggression” if need be, after the Gulf Cooperation Council convened via video-link to formulate a unified response.
• Top US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make the case Tuesday to Congress for the attack on Iran. Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and military chief General Dan Caine “will brief the full membership of both chambers of Congress,” White House spokesman Dylan Johnson said.
• Container shipping company Maersk said it was halting passage through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz for “safety” reasons.
The Danish group was the latest of several shipping groups to make similar announcements after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards declared the strait closed on Saturday.
• Seven people were injured in the Jerusalem area following the latest salvo of missiles fired from Iran, Israeli firefighters said.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had agreed to let the United States use UK bases to fire “defensive” strikes aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and their launchers. But in a video address posted to social media, he added: “We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and we will not join offensive action now.
• Iranian media reported that a police station in a city on the outskirts of Tehran had been hit, killing an unspecified number of people, with others reportedly trapped under debris. “According to initial reports, a number of citizens were martyred and some were trapped under the rubble,” the Tasnim news agency reported.
• Iranian news agency ISNA reported that Gandhi hospital in northern Tehran had been targeted by strikes. The Fars and Mizan agencies published a video, presented as being from inside the facility, showing debris on the floor among wheelchairs.
