Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz on Tuesday warned that a decision on an all-out war with Hizbullah was coming soon, as the US tried to avert an escalation in hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese militants.
The development came as Israeli air strikes on Tuesday killed at least 17 Palestinians in two of the Gaza Strip’s historic refugee camps and Israeli tanks pushed deeper into the enclave’s southern city of Rafah, according to local residents and medics.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was sent to Lebanon to try to cool tensions following an increase in cross-border fire along Lebanon’s southern frontier that has escalated to Hizbullah hinting it could attack Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.
Iran-backed Hizbullah has been trading fire with Israel for the last eight months in parallel with the Gaza war. Last week, the group fired the largest volleys of rockets and drones of the hostilities so far at Israeli military sites, after an Israeli strike killed the most senior commander yet. An Israeli spokesman said Israel on Tuesday targeted a Hizbullah air unit in the latest series of strikes.
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Hizbullah says it will not halt its attacks unless there is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Hochstein, special envoy to US president Joe Biden, said he had been dispatched to Lebanon immediately following a brief trip to Israel because the situation was “serious”.
“We have seen an escalation over the last few weeks. And what President Biden wants to do is avoid a further escalation to a greater war,” he said.
Mr Katz said in an X post that in the wake of threats by Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to damage Haifa’s ports, which are operated by Chinese and Indian companies, “we are getting very close to the moment of deciding on changing the rules of the game against [Hizbullah] and Lebanon”.
“In an all-out war, [Hizbullah] will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely beaten,” he said. Israel, Mr Katz said, would also pay a heavy price but the country was united and it must restore security to the residents of the north.
In Gaza, residents reported heavy bombardments from tanks and planes in several areas of Rafah, where more than a million people had taken refuge before May. Most of the population has fled northwards since then as Israeli forces invaded the city.
“Rafah is being bombed without any intervention from the world, the occupation (Israel) is acting freely here,” a Rafah resident and father of six said via a chat app.
Israeli tanks were operating inside Tel Al-Sultan, Al-Izba, and Zurub areas in Rafah’s west, as well as Shaboura at the heart of the city. They also continued to occupy the eastern neighborhoods and outskirts as well as the border with Egypt and the vital Rafah border crossing.
“There are Israeli forces in most areas, there is heavy resistance too and they are making them pay dearly but the occupation is not ethical and they are destroying the city and the refugee camp,” the resident said.
Palestinian health officials said one man was killed in the morning by Israeli fire on the eastern side of Rafah. Medics said they believed many others had been killed in the past days and weeks but rescue teams could not reach them.
The Israeli military said it was continuing “precise, intelligence-based activity” in Rafah, killing many Palestinian gunmen over the past day in close-range combat and seized weapons. The air force struck dozens of targets across the Gaza Strip in the past day, it added.
In the central Gaza Strip, two separate Israeli air strikes on two houses killed 17 Palestinians in Al-Nuseirat and Al-Bureij, two designated refugee camps that are home to families and descendants of people who fled to Gaza in the 1948 war around the creation of Israel, medics said.
The Israeli military statement did not comment directly on the 17 deaths but said forces continued to operate against militant factions in central Gaza areas.
Also on Tuesday, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem were suffering a drastically worsening human rights environment, alongside “unconscionable death and suffering” in the Gaza Strip.
“The situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is dramatically deteriorating,” Mr Turk told the opening session of the UN Human Rights Council.
The West Bank, where the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule under Israeli occupation, has seen the worst unrest for decades, in parallel with the war in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.
Mr Turk said that from the start of the Gaza war in October through mid-June, 528 Palestinians, 133 of them children, had been killed by Israeli security forces or settlers in the West Bank, in some cases raising “serious concerns of unlawful killings”.
Twenty-three Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel in clashes with or attacks by Palestinians, he said.
In Gaza, Mr Turk said he was “appalled by the disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law” by parties to the war.
“Israel’s relentless strikes in Gaza are causing immense suffering and widespread destruction, and the arbitrary denial and obstruction of humanitarian aid have continued,” Turk said.
“Israel continues to detain arbitrarily thousands of Palestinians. This must not continue.”
He added that Palestinian armed groups were continuing to hold hostages, including in populated areas, which put both the hostages and civilians at risk.
Israel’s permanent mission to the U.N. in Geneva accused Mr Turk of “completely omitting the cruelty and barbarity of terrorism” in his address to the council. – Reuters