Netanyahu vows to keep hitting Hezbollah ‘full force’ as his allies pan truce report
Ben Gvir threatens to withdraw his party from coalition if PM agrees to proposal by US, France and other nations for a 21-day lull to negotiate an end to fighting
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and will not stop until its goals are achieved.
Netanyahu spoke as he landed in New York to attend the annual UN General Assembly meeting and as American and European officials were pressing for a 21-day halt in fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to give time for negotiations.
He said Israel’s “policy is clear. We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force. And we will not stop until we achieve all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes.”
Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office swiftly denied as false a report Thursday morning that claimed officials expected a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah within hours.
The United States, European Union, and other allies including several Arab states had issued a joint call for a 21-day halt in the fighting in Lebanon, where a months-long border conflict has spiked in recent days, with Hezbollah bombarding Israel’s north and the Israel Defense Forces hitting the Iran-backed group’s infrastructure, much of which is embedded in civilian areas.
“This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister hasn’t even responded to,” the PMO said in a statement.
The statement also cast as “opposite from the truth” a Channel 12 report that Netanyahu had ordered the IDF to tone down strikes in Lebanon, saying the premier has empowered the army to keep striking with “full force,” and that the fighting in Gaza will continue until all the war goals are reached.
However, a senior Western diplomat said that Israel and Lebanon privately had given mediators their support for a 21-day ceasefire on the Blue Line that separates the two countries before it was announced in a joint statement led by the US and France.
The Western diplomat told The Times of Israel that Netanyahu’s conduct is an extension of how he has handled the Gaza hostage talks, in which he has privately agreed to show flexibility only to make public statements immediately afterward aimed at calming his political base but that risk thwarting progress in negotiations.
Rocket fire from Lebanon continued during the day as Israeli warplanes pounded Hezbollah targets.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz backed up Netanyahu, asserting that “there will be no ceasefire in the north.”
“We will continue to fight the Hezbollah terror group with full force until victory and the return of residents of the north to their homes safely,” added Katz, who is standing in for Netanyahu during the latter’s US trip but who doesn’t appear to have authority to make operational decisions on the prosecution of the war.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and enabling the return of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, which began attacking after Hamas’s devastating October 7, 2023, onslaught, in solidarity with the Gaza terror group.
Headlines in various Hebrew media promised an imminent ceasefire based on a single report by Britain’s Sky News, which quoted unnamed US administration officials as saying they “expect” a three-week pause to be implemented “in the coming hours” in line with the joint call issued by the US, France, and several allies. The lull was to be used for negotiations aimed at reaching a more permanent ceasefire.
Previous reports had quoted Israeli officials as saying the chances for a ceasefire were very slim, while others cited US officials as saying only that a decision from Israel and Lebanon on the ceasefire proposal was expected “within hours” — not that such a ceasefire would immediately come into effect.
The proposal was issued from the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, which is underway in New York.
Israel’s envoy to the UN and Lebanon’s prime minister, who is attending the assembly, had both welcomed the proposal.
The Sky report, and the joint statement from the plan’s architects calling for a lull in the fighting — a step vehemently opposed by Netanyahu’s voter base and his far-right coalition partners — set off a flurry of responses from Israeli political figures.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to withdraw his far-right Otzma Yehudit party from Netanyahu’s government if he agrees to a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Following a meeting with lawmakers from his party, Ben Gvir warned the prime minister that acceding to a temporary deal would cause him to cease cooperating with the rest of the coalition and “if the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent we will resign from the government.”
“The most basic and understandable thing is that when your enemy is on his knees, you do not allow him to recover, but work to defeat him,” Ben Gvir said, claiming that to pause the fighting “conveys weakness, endangers the security of your citizens, and proves that you do not intend to win.”
He continued, “If the temporary ceasefire becomes permanent…all the Otzma Yehudit ministers and MKs will resign from the government and the coalition.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also declared he opposed the ceasefire proposal, insisting that continuing the war against Hezbollah was the only way forward.
“The campaign in the north should end with a single result: crushing Hezbollah and eliminating its ability to harm the residents of the north,” Smotrich said on social media platform X. “The enemy must not be given time to recover from the heavy blows it has suffered and reorganize itself to continue the war after 21 days.”
Culture Minister Miki Zohar of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party said he hoped what he termed the “reports” were untrue, adding that agreeing to a ceasefire would constitute “a serious error that endangers Israel’s major security achievements in recent days.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that Israel should partially accept the joint US-French call for an immediate truce but only for seven days and not 21, in order to keep Hezbollah from regrouping.
“The State of Israel should announce this morning that it accepts the Biden-Macron ceasefire proposal, but only for seven days so as not to allow Hezbollah to restore its command and control systems,” he tweeted. “We will not accept any proposal that does not include removing Hezbollah from our northern border.
“Any proposal that is put forward must allow the residents of the north to immediately return safely to their homes and lead to the renewal of negotiations for a hostage deal” with Hamas, he continued.
Lapid’s statement came a day after he received a security briefing from Netanyahu.
Hezbollah is barred by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani River. The Shiite terror group has blatantly violated that resolution and, since October 8, has regularly launched attacks on Israel from near the border.
It began its attacks a day after the war with Hamas erupted with a devastating cross-border terror onslaught in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 people were taken as hostages to Gaza.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 512 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 88 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Lebanese officials say some 600 people in the country have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past few days, without differentiating between civilians and combatants. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the number of displaced Lebanese had soared to nearly 500,000 since Israel ramped up its military campaign.
