ALI AL-NAHRI, Lebanon: Hezbollah warned Saturday that it would have no choice but to fight on after Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon killed 12 people.
Lebanon’s government has vowed to disarm Hezbollah, but Israel insists it retains the right to strike the Lebanese group.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had hit Hezbollah command centres in eastern Lebanon and targets linked to the Palestinian group Hamas in the south.
Hezbollah said Saturday that eight of its fighters had been killed, after Lebanon’s health ministry said 10 people died in the east and two in the south.
“What happened yesterday in the Bekaa is a new massacre and a new aggression,” Hezbollah official Mahmud Qamati said, in a speech broadcast by the Al-Manar network.
“What option do we have left to defend ourselves and our country? What option do we have other than resistance? We no longer have any option.”
Israeli strikes on Lebanon
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun also condemned the attacks, which came just days after the government said the army will start implementing the second phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah in the south of the country.
The strikes came as tensions were also building between the United States and Iran, with US President Donald Trump threatening military action over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
In Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek, a mass funeral was held for commander Hussein Mohammad Yaghi and one of the fighters, with hundreds of people gathered, waving Hezbollah flags and chanting support.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP all eight members of the group were attending a meeting in the eastern Bekaa region when a strike killed them.
In eastern Lebanon, a bulldozer was clearing debris following the strike on Bednayel, and a heavily damaged building between Riyak and Ali al-Nahri, where the Hezbollah official said the members were meeting, AFP reported.
The Israeli strikes targeted residential areas.
They came hours after an Israeli strike on the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp in the south killed two people, according to the health ministry.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the attack, which it said led to civilian casualties as the targeted building “belongs to the joint security force charged with maintaining security and stability in the camp”.
‘Act of aggression’
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah.
Aoun called Friday’s attacks “a blatant act of aggression aimed at thwarting diplomatic efforts” by the United States and other nations to establish stability.
Washington is one of five members of a multinational committee overseeing the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, with the body scheduled to meet again next week.
Hezbollah lawmaker Rami Abu Hamdan said the group “will not accept the authorities acting as mere political analysts, dismissing these as Israeli strikes we have grown accustomed to before every meeting of the committee”.
He called on Beirut to “suspend the committee’s meetings until the enemy ceases its attacks”.
Lebanon’s government last year committed to disarming the group, with the army saying last month it had completed the first phase of the plan covering the area near the Israeli border.
