Netanyahu says Israel will continue striking Hezbollah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is planning to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon “with full force” until residents in northern Israel can go back to their homes safely.

“We will not stop until we reach all our goals, chief among them the return of the residents of the north securely to their homes,” Netanyahu told reporters after landing in the United States ahead of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly Friday.

Shortly before his statement, the Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah drone commander in an airstrike on an apartment building in the suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Two people were killed, and 15 others were injured in the attack, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Netanyahu’s confirmation that Israel will continue conducting strikes in Lebanon come as U.S. and European officials push for a 21-day pause in fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah for negotiations to take place.

But earlier on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz rejected a proposed cease-fire along the Israel-Lebanon border, hours after the European Union, the United States, France and eight other nations called for the three-week halt in fighting.

“We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes," Katz said on social media platform X.

The cease-fire proposal came late Wednesday in a statement saying the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group “is intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation.”

The multination statement said a cease-fire would allow for negotiations toward a diplomatic settlement consistent with U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for a halt to the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cautioned Thursday that “all-out war" would be “devastating” for Israel and Lebanon.

“A full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel could be devastating for both parties,” Austin said in London. He added that a cease-fire “can also be used to conclude and implement a deal to secure a cease-fire in Gaza.”

Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also joined the cease-fire call, which said a broader regional conflict “is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon.”

Hezbollah has not yet responded to the proposal for a halt in fighting. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati supports it, but his government has no influence over Hezbollah.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Security Council earlier Wednesday he would head to Beirut later this week to work with local stakeholders on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

The developments come after some of the deadliest days in Lebanon since its civil war ended in the early 1990s.

Israel’s military said Thursday it had already carried out airstrikes on 75 Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon and was continuing to conduct new attacks. Israel also detected about 45 projectiles crossing into its territory from Lebanon, the military said.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency said an Israeli attack near the city of Baalbek hit a building housing Syrian workers, killing 23 people and wounding eight others.

Lebanese health officials said Israeli strikes killed 50 people on Wednesday, bringing the death toll since Monday to more than 630 people, with more than 2,000 wounded.

“To all sides, let us say in one clear voice: Stop the killing and destruction. Tone down the rhetoric and threats. Step back from the brink,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday. “An all-out war must be avoided at all costs. It would surely be an all-out catastrophe.”

Ground invasion?

Israel’s army chief said Wednesday his troops should be prepared for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon, as Israeli fighter jets bombarded Hezbollah militant targets for a third straight day and the militants launched a ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency near Tel Aviv. Israel shot down the missile.

Hezbollah broke a relative calm along the border after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza. Israel says Hezbollah has fired nearly 9,000 rockets at communities in northern Israel since then. The militant group says it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians and its fellow Iran-backed ally Hamas. The fighting has killed 49 people in Israel, along with hundreds in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border.

Israel also said it has activated reserve troops in response to the fight against the Hezbollah militants.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas' October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. They are still holding around 100 captives, one-third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks have killed more than 41,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, with the Israeli military saying the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters.

Hamas has been designated a terror group by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and others. Hezbollah also is a U.S.-designated terror group.

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.