Netanyahu spokesman says IDF strikes should ‘jumpstart’ serious talks with Lebanon, ‘not do the opposite’

Israel wants new and more ambitious US-brokered talks with Lebanon after carrying out deadly strikes targeting Hezbollah, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.

The Israeli strikes against Hezbollah “should jumpstart the talks and make them much more serious, not do the opposite,” Netanyahu spokesman Doron Spielman tells AFP.

“And I think it will. It will hopefully move these talks along because the enemy here is clear and the enemy is Hezbollah,” he says.

Israel said that it carried out the strikes after Hezbollah attacked troops inside the IDF’s security zone. Three Israeli soldiers were seriously injured, Netanyahu’s office said.

Spielman says Israel was still upholding a US-brokered agreement that calls for Lebanon’s fledgling security forces to take gradual control and remove Hezbollah, a Shia movement backed by Iran’s clerical state that has long played a central role in Lebanon.

“We believe in the agreement. We very much hope that the Lebanese Armed Forces are going to be able to step into the foray, and together we’re going to remove Hezbollah from the picture,” Spielman says.