Key points
- The United States says Israel has the opportunity to prevent Lebanon from facing the same destruction as Gaza.
- US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held their first call in weeks.
- Israel says it launched airstrikes north of the coast of Sidon, killing four people and wounding 10 others.
Israel must avoid conducting military operations in Lebanon as it did in Gaza, the US State Department said, also expressing concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“I am clearly saying that there should not be any kind of military action in Lebanon that looks like Gaza and leaves an outcome that looks like Gaza,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Miller was responding to a question about a video released Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“You have the opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering as we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
“I say to you, the Lebanese people: liberate your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
Biden and Netanyahu chat for the first time in weeks
US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone for the first time in weeks, a conversation that came as Israel expanded its ground incursion into Lebanon and considered how to respond to Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack.
Wednesday’s meeting between Biden and Netanyahu was “direct” and “productive” and included discussions about a potential attack on Iran, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“It lasted 30 minutes. It was direct, it was productive,” Jean-Pierre said.
It was the first conversation between Biden and Netanyahu since August 21.
Escalation in Lebanon
Israel launched airstrikes north of Sidon, including against targets far from the border combat zone.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said four people were killed and 10 injured in a strike in the city of Wardaniyeh.
Israel said troops from as many as four divisions have operated in Lebanon since the ground operation was first announced on October 1.
The bombing of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most in the past two weeks, and forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes.
For a year, Hezbollah has been launching rockets against Israel in parallel with the war in Gaza.
The Iran-backed group said it fired several volleys of rockets at Israeli troops near the village of Labbouneh in the western part of the border area near the Mediterranean coast and managed to repel them.
Further east, Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli soldiers in the village of Maroun al-Ras and launched rocket barrages at Israeli forces advancing toward the twin border villages of Mays al-Jabal and Mouhaybib.
Israel says it will continue to strike Hezbollah until tens of thousands of Israelis can return to the homes they fled under Hezbollah rocket fire.
Israel’s international law “obligation”.
Miller said separately that the United States was “particularly concerned” about the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, where the territory’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces had intensified shelling and closed roads, preventing the delivery of supplies. help.
“We have made it clear to the Israeli government that it has an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow food, water and other necessary humanitarian assistance to reach all parts of Gaza.”
With further reporting from Reuters.
