PM says strikes on Hezbollah ‘not end of story’ as allies warn against escalation
US reportedly backed strike but working to prevent all-out war; Jordan, Egypt sound alarm against further violence; reports indicate Jerusalem, Beirut seeking to restore calm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s preemptive overnight strike on Lebanon’s Hezbollah was not “the end of the story,” as regional and global leaders warned against escalating toward a wider conflict.
Reuters reported on Sunday that Israel and Hezbollah had communicated via intermediaries in order to prevent further escalation, while Channel 12 news said Israel and Washington were working to achieve a detente through diplomacy. The network’s unsourced report said Washington had given its blessing to Israel’s pre-dawn strike, but warned against triggering an all-out war.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel hoped for a diplomatic settlement in the north, and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah indicated the Iran-backed terror group might consider the current round of hostilities to be over, even as allied terror groups applauded Hezbollah’s thwarted attack on Israel.
Gallant earlier discussed the overnight strikes in a call with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin, who according to the Axios news site ordered two US aircraft carrier strike groups to stay in the region.
In his opening remarks at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said he had ordered “a powerful, preemptive strike to eliminate the threat” after the Iran-backed terror group “tried to attack the State of Israel with rockets and drones.”
“The IDF intercepted all the drones that Hezbollah launched at strategic targets in the center of the country,” said the premier. “Nasrallah in Beirut and [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei in Tehran should know that this is another step on the path to changing the situation in the north and returning our residents safely to their homes.”
But, he added: “I reiterate – this is not the end of the story.”
IDF chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi also said Sunday that Israel is “determined to change the security situation in the north so that the residents of the north can return to their homes safely.”
Some 60,000 northern residents remain displaced since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. The north was evacuated amid fears of a similar attack from Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel the next day.
Early on Sunday, some 100 Israeli fighter jets struck thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, minutes before the launchers were set to fire at Israel’s north and center. The Iran-backed terror group succeeded in firing some 230 rockets and 20 drones at Israel’s north, causing some damage to homes. An Israeli Navy sailor was also killed and two others injured after an apparent Israeli interceptor rocket misfire.
Arab governments, including Lebanon’s official leadership, warned against further escalation.
Jordan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Sufain Qudah said the tensions could lead to “regional war.” He blamed Israel’s failure to end its “aggression” in Gaza for exposing the region to the dangers of an expansion of the conflict, Jordanian state media reported. Hezbollah has said it would stop firing at Israel when the war in Gaza ends.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also warned of the dangers of a major conflict in Lebanon.
Speaking to top US general Charles Q. Brown, who arrived in Egypt hours after Israel struck Hezbollah, Sissi said the international community needed to “exert all efforts and intensify pressures to defuse tension,” and noted “the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon” as he stressed the “need to preserve Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty,” according to a statement from the president’s office.
Responding to the early Sunday conflagration, the office of the UN special coordinator for Lebanon and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said they “call on all to cease fire and refrain from further escalatory action,” describing the latest developments as “worrying.”
The statement said a truce “followed by the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, is the only sustainable way forward.”
The resolution ended a 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and called for the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati also urged the implementation of Resolution 1701.
Speaking at an emergency meeting, Mikati said he had been holding “a series of contacts with Lebanon’s friends to stop the escalation,” and emphasized Lebanon’s “support for international efforts that could lead to a ceasefire in Gaza,” according to a statement.
Advance notice
Israel had given the United States “considerable” advance notice of its pre-dawn strike on Lebanon, according to Channel 12. The unsourced report said that the White House, in several interactions with Jerusalem, conveyed its support for actions to avert a specific threat, but cautioned against “anything that is likely to lead to a regional war.”
Channel 12 said Israel was now trying to advance an arrangement that would yield calm on the northern border, and trying to pressure Hezbollah in that regard “via the Americans and others.”
The report said the pressure aims “to explain in words, after Israel explained in actions, that it is not in Hezbollah’s interests to escalate or take the region into war.”
According to Channel 12, “some in Israel” are optimistic about a diplomatic solution in the north.
Reuters also cited two diplomats as saying that Israel and Hezbollah had exchanged messages via intermediaries on Sunday to prevent further escalation.
The main message was that both sides considered Sunday’s intense exchange “done” and that neither side wanted a full-scale war, one diplomat said. The diplomats spoke on condition they were not identified.
Gallant told senior IDF generals at a situation assessment in the army’s Tel Aviv headquarters that Israel hoped to leverage a hostages-for-ceasefire agreement “to also open up the [possibility] of an agreement [with Hezbollah] in the north, and later also to calm the region.”
Still, Gallant said, “We are operating militarily and are preparing as if we will not reach an agreement.”
Nasrallah, speaking Sunday evening, falsely claimed that Hezbollah’s attack had hit major Israeli bases and caused great disruption in the country.
He said that the terror group was waiting to see the “results” of its attack. If the attack were found “satisfactory” then the retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah’s top commander Fuad Shukr would be considered over, said Nasrallah. Otherwise, he said, the terror group reserved the right to strike again.
Hezbollah threatened a large-scale attack in retaliation for the July 30 killing of Shukr in an Israeli airstrike on the terror group’s south Beirut stronghold. The strike came in response to a July 27 Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights, which Israel blamed on Shukr.
Praise from proxies
Meanwhile, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis — both, like Hezbollah, part of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” — had nothing but praise for the Lebanese group’s thwarted attack.
“We emphasize that this strong and focused response, which struck deep inside the Zionist entity, is a slap in the face” for the Israeli government, Hamas said.
The Houthis congratulated Nasrallah on the strike, saying it “confirms that the resistance is capable, strong and honest in its promise and threats.”
The rebels also pledged to launch their own attacks on Israel in response to July 20 strikes that targeted the Yemeni coastal city of Hodeida, a day after a Houthi drone killed one person and injured several in Tel Aviv.
“We reaffirm once again that the Yemeni response is definitely coming,” said the Houthis.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 20 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 420 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 73 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
Gianluca Pacchiani contributed to this report.
