If the week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah fails, the IDF will be more ready to strike non-Hezbollah Lebanese targets, Defense Minister Israel Katz said during a visit to the northern border on Tuesday.
“If the ceasefire collapses – there will not be any more exemption to the state of Lebanon,” said Katz.He noted that Israel would never return to the days when it would ignore “minor” rocket fire or a small tent that Hezbollah erected before the war illegally a small number of meters into Israeli territory, adding, “If until now we distinguished between Lebanon and Hezbollah – this will not continue.”
These statements were the farthest and most explicit a top Israeli defense official has gone in threatening the wider state of Lebanon, though from time to time, some top officials have made similar implied threats.
The threats came after Hezbollah violated the ceasefire with two mortars fired into the Golan Heights late Monday.
Katz contradicts the IDF
The IDF responded hours later with wide-ranging airstrikes for deterrence.
Generally, Katz’s statements go against the messaging that top IDF officials have given off. The military has done all it could over the last 14 months to almost solely target Hezbollah-Shi’ite areas in Lebanon, and not Sunni, Christian, or Palestinian Lebanese areas.
The number of times that the IDF has attacked cities that are predominantly non-Shi’ite has been extremely small, and each time has involved a warning and a post-attack statement that those attacked were Hezbollah terrorists hiding among the non-Hezbollah sector.
The statement is even more unusual because there are no signs, to date, that Lebanon has done anything to assist Hezbollah in violating the ceasefire.
Rather, Israel has complained that the Lebanese army has so far failed to contain Hezbollah from violations, but it has been well-known by all parties that the Lebanese army is much weaker than Hezbollah, too much to do so.Even after a 14-month war and two months of heavy bombing by the IDF, Hezbollah retains tens of thousands of fighters and is still by far the most dominant military force in Lebanon.
Alternatively, Katz’s threats may be a warning shot to try to motivate all the parties in Lebanon to strive for a quieter rollout of the ceasefire than has been to date without any real intention of following through on the threat.
If Katz is departing from the IDF’s messaging, this would not be the first time. Shortly after he took on his role, he was recorded with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, sitting next to him said that there would be no ceasefire until Hezbollah was disarmed.
This drew a confused look from Halevi, which many media outlets picked up on since this was not a condition of reaching a ceasefire.
Instead, the IDF was only demanding that Hezbollah withdraw north of the Litani River and that it retain the ability to attack any attempts from neighboring states to rearm the terrorist group.Tensions between Katz and Halevi have flared multiple times, including over specific commander promotions within the military, in the month since he replaced Yoav Gallant, who had much more of the same mindset as the IDF chief on both military and political issues.
Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting in the northern border city of Nahariya, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah seriously violated the ceasefire on Monday with its mortar fire, but that the IDF had responded by striking over 20 targets across Lebanon.
“We are currently in a ceasefire, I note, a ceasefire, not the end of the war,” he said. “We have a clear goal to return the residents, to rehabilitate the north. We are enforcing this ceasefire with an iron fist, acting against any violation, minor ones just like serious ones,” Netanyahu stated.
Overall, the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is still expected to hold.In Syria, the Israel Air Force attacked and eliminated Hezbollah’s envoy to the Syrian army, Salman Nimr Jamaa, the IDF announced Tuesday afternoon.
The Syrian regime, which established support for Hezbollah throughout the years and allowed the use of the country for the transfer of weapons, heavily utilized Jamaa and endangered the lives of Lebanese and Syrian civilians alike, said the IDF.
The military said that Jamaa is a veteran Hezbollah operative who has held several positions with Hezbollah throughout the years, particularly with a focus on Syria, including as head of intelligence in the Al-Khayyam sector, and then head of operations at Hezbollah’s Damascus headquarters. He later was appointed as Hezbollah’s envoy to the Syrian army.
In Gaza, troops killed seven Hamas terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre, the military said on Tuesday.Nukhba terrorist Abd Alrazak, who was also an engineering operative in the center of the enclave, was eliminated along with Marzuk Alhur, who was a Hamas terrorist who infiltrated southern Israel on October 7.
The military also mentioned Ma’az Alhur, Abd Abu Awad Yusri, Omer Abu Abdallah, and Ma’ad Abu Garboa as Hamas operatives who had participated in the October 7 massacre.
Troops also conducted several targeted raids in the area, during which they dismantled Hamas military sites, including structures, observation posts, and sniper positions. Numerous weapons were located and dismantled, including grenades, arms, military vests, explosives, and mortars.
Despite these focused attacks, and with the exception of some intense military attacks in Rafah in August and in Jabalya in October, the IDF’s military activity in Gaza has been much lower since June.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.