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The United States said Monday it wants the Israel-Hezbollah war to end “as soon as possible”, and pressed for the enforcement of a UN resolution that required Iran-backed Hezbollah to withdraw from south Lebanon.
The call from Israel’s top ally came as Israeli forces escalated their nearly month-long war in Lebanon, including targeting a finance group linked to Hezbollah, and continued pounding Gaza more than one year into the war there.
With the fighting raging, US envoy Amos Hochstein, visiting Lebanon’s capital, said Washington wants to see the conflict in Lebanon end “as soon as possible”.
“Tying Lebanon’s future to other conflicts in the region was not and is not in the interest of the Lebanese people,” Hochstein said, referring to a key Hezbollah demand that any ceasefire in Lebanon be linked to an end to the war in Gaza.
Hochstein also said that while UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, should be the basis for a new ceasefire, the parties had not done enough to implement it since then.
Under Resolution 1701, only the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL should have been able to deploy in areas south of Lebanon’s Litani River near the Israeli border.
But Iran-backed Hezbollah remained in south Lebanon, and started launching low-intensity cross-border strikes into Israel last year in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to begin another tour of the Middle East in Israel on Tuesday, on a new push for an elusive Gaza ceasefire as fears persist of even wider war.
Israel has vowed to respond to an Iranian missile attack on October 1 — itself retaliation for the killings of top militants — putting the region on tenterhooks.
Israeli police announced on Monday they had arrested a spy network of seven Israeli citizens allegedly gathering information on Israel’s military bases and energy infrastructure for Iranian intelligence.
Syria’s government said two civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on an embassy district of the capital Damascus on Monday.
– Escalation –
Israel expanded the scope of its war from Gaza to Lebanon last month, vowing to keep fighting Hezbollah until it secures its northern border to allow for the return of people displaced by rocket fire.
Lebanon’s health ministry said six people, including a child, were killed when an Israeli strike hit a building in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Monday.
Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said that over the past day his forces had struck about 30 targets related to Hezbollah-linked Lebanese financial firm Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which Israel accused of financing the group’s weapons.
The strikes marked an expansion of Israel’s nearly month-long war with Hezbollah.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said the strikes caused “extensive damage” to civilian property and infrastructure.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that the Israeli army blew up houses in the border village of Aita al-Shaab on Monday, adding that there had been heavy clashes in south Lebanon as the Israeli army “tried to advance”.
Hezbollah said it had fired a salvo of rockets at Israeli soldiers near the village.
Nearly a month of all-out war has killed at least 1,470 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
In Gaza, the war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s bombing and ground offensives in Gaza have killed 42,603 people, a majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has repeatedly accused Israeli forces of targeting its members and positions, including “deliberately” demolishing a UNIFIL tower and fence over the weekend.
On Monday, Germany demanded that Israel “clarify every incident” involving UNIFIL.
– ‘We will die of hunger’ –
On its southern front, Israel launched a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza earlier this month, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in the area.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said four Palestinians were killed in strikes on Monday, while several homes were blown up in the northern area of Jabalia, a focus of the recent fighting.
A displaced resident said Jabalia “is being wiped out”.
“If we don’t die from the bombing and gunfire, we will die of hunger,” said 42-year-old Umm Firas Shamiyah, demanding aid be sent to the north.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike on a residential area killed 73 Palestinians in Beit Lahia on Saturday.
“There were smoke bombs and sound grenades, and we fled with our children, without taking anything with us — no milk, no diapers, nothing essential for life, no blankets, no mattresses,” said Shaima Naseer, who fled Beit Lahia with her children.
“As you can see, here are our children, sleeping on the ground,” said the 30-year-old, holding her nine-month-old baby in her arms.
The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas terror target” in Beit Lahia, adding that the toll figures given by Gaza authorities “do not align” with the information it possessed.
Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have fled the assault on northern Gaza, and according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees around 400,000 people were trapped in northern Gaza last week.
The UN has warned of the risk of famine in Gaza, its figures showing that 396 aid trucks have entered the territory so far this month — far below the 3,003 seen in September.
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