The Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, has warned this Tuesday that the Army is prepared to bomb certain neighborhoods of Beirut that it links with the Shiite party-militia Hezbollah if attacks from Lebanon against the north of the country continue, despite the ceasefire announced by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, after his conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Katz has framed this warning within a strategy of protecting Israeli communities near the border. "The proof of this policy of protecting the settlements will be simple and will become clear in the coming days: if the shooting against the settlements ceases, or if it continues and we attack Dahiyé in Beirut, this equation will become a reality," he stated during his speech at the Defense Export Conference.
Along these lines, he insisted that "there will be no situation where our settlements are shot at without a forceful response against the Dahiyé neighborhood," emphasizing that any offensive from Lebanese territory will be responded to and that the actions of the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon "will continue in any case."
The head of Defense also justified the Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, which now extends beyond the Litani River, after the capture of the symbolic Beaufort Castle, located less than 10 kilometers from Nabatiyeh, with the "aim of eliminating threats of incursions and direct fire against Israeli communities."
As he detailed, "the IDF forces expanded the occupied area up to Beaufort Castle, which became a dominant position and part of the security zone, with a total area of approximately 600 square kilometers," emphasizing that the area Israel considers its security strip against Hezbollah exceeds the Gaza Strip in extent.
In this context, he denounced that "there is no ceasefire within Lebanon and the IDF continues its activities against Hezbollah." "The long-term strategic objective is the disarmament of Hezbollah, and the immediate objective, related to the purpose of the operation in Lebanon, is the demilitarization of the entire Litani zone," he added.
Katz's message comes in addition to the one issued by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has stressed that "despite renewed ceasefire declarations," "Hezbollah continues to violate it." "Hezbollah's continued ceasefire violations are unacceptable," the department censured.
This scenario clashes with the statements of the US president, who on Monday assured that Israel would not finally attack the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after speaking with Netanyahu, and also indicated that he had the commitment of the Shiite party-militia to stop its armed actions.
The latest high-intensity hostilities in Lebanese territory began on March 2, when Hezbollah launched projectiles against Israel in response to the assassination of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the aforementioned offensive. This episode broke the ceasefire agreed upon in November 2024, which had ended thirteen months of clashes triggered by Hamas's attacks on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.