Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has expressed the country’s readiness to enforce a ceasefire deal with Lebanon.
U.S. envoys, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, were in Israel on Thursday in a new push to secure ceasefires in both Lebanon and Gaza.
“The main issue is not the paperwork of this or that agreement, but Israel’s ability and determination to enforce the agreement and thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s office cited him as telling the two U.S. envoys.
Netanyahu’s comments come shortly after a Hezbollah attack on northern Israel’s town of Metula, killing five people, including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers.
The diplomatic push comes amid intensifying fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which has run in parallel to Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas militants that has left the tiny enclave in ruins and has caused a humanitarian crisis.
Meanwhile, Israel bombarded areas around the eastern city of Baalbek on Thursday for a second consecutive day after issuing evacuation notices. On Wednesday it had conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city, which is famed for its Roman temples.
Also, officials in Beirut said a series of Israeli strikes had killed six health workers in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, on their part, said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near the southern town of Khiyam on Thursday, marking the fourth straight day of fighting in and around the strategic hilltop town, which is home to one of the largest Shia communities in southern Lebanon.