Israeli airstrikes target Brital's outskirts and Jezzine heights
Israeli warplanes on Thursday bombed areas in northeastern and southern Lebanon, a day after a defiant speech by Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem.
In the Bekaa, the airstrikes targeted the outskirts of the town of Brital in two waves and the peripheries of the town of Janta near Syria's border.
Israeli warplanes also carried out strikes on the heights of the al-Mahmoudiyeh and al-Jarmaq areas in south Lebanon’s Jezzine region.
The Israeli army said the strikes targeted “Hezbollah military sites in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.”
“Among the infrastructure targeted were a facility for the production of explosives used in the development of Hezbollah weapons and an underground site for the production of missiles and the storage of strategic weapons,” the Israeli army added.
Hezbollah “has been working to restore the sites, and these activities constitute a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the Israeli army said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said strikes in the Bekaa targeted Hezbollah's "biggest precision missile production plant" in the country, threatening that any attempt by Hezbollah to “restore, reestablish itself or pose a threat will be met with uncompromising force."
"As I have emphasized, the policy of maximum enforcement against Hezbollah will continue," he added.
Israel has frequently bombed the aforementioned areas since the November ceasefire, alleging the presence of Hezbollah military bases.
Such airstrikes have become regular after Qassem’s speeches. This time they come amid a debate in the country over Hezbollah’s controversial arsenal of weapons.
Earlier in the day, President Joseph Aoun said that Lebanon is determined to disarm Hezbollah, a step it has come under heavy U.S. pressure to take, with the Iran-backed group insisting that doing so would serve Israeli goals.
In a key speech marking Army Day on Thursday, Aoun said Lebanon was demanding "the extension of the Lebanese state's authority over all its territory, the removal of weapons from all armed groups including Hezbollah and their handover to the Lebanese Army."
He added it was every politician's duty "to seize this historic opportunity and push without hesitation towards affirming the army and security forces' monopoly on weapons over all Lebanese territory... in order to regain the world's confidence."
On Wednesday, Qassem had said that "anyone calling today for the surrender of weapons, whether internally or externally, on the Arab or the international stage, is serving the Israeli project."
He accused U.S. envoy Tom Barrack, who has visited Lebanon several times in recent months for talks with senior officials, of using "intimidation and threats" with the aim of "aiding Israel."
Lebanon has proposed modifications to "ideas" submitted by the United States on Hezbollah's disarmament, Aoun added, and a plan would be discussed at a cabinet meeting next week to "establish a timetable for implementation."
Aoun also demanded the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the release of Lebanese prisoners and "an immediate cessation of Israeli hostilities."
