Israel needs to shift military focus to Lebanon, Gantz says

Hamas is 'old news', former war cabinet and defence minister tells forum in US

Benny Gantz said Iran and its proxy groups, including Hezbollah, are now the main threat to Israel. EPA

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Israel's military focus should be shifted to Lebanon and countering Iran after almost a year of war in Gaza, former Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz said, as Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah continue to trade almost daily cross-border fire.

“We have enough forces to deal with Gaza and we should concentrate on what is going on in the north,” Mr Gantz told a Middle East forum in Washington. He added that Israel made a mistake in evacuating northern areas of the country, where more than 60,000 people are believed to have left their homes.

Mr Gantz's comments come as an Israeli MP and member of the Knesset's foreign affairs committee, Nissim Vaturi, advocated war in Lebanon within days, saying Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh “will look like Gaza”.

Israel and Hezbollah continued to trade violent blows following Mr Gant's statement, with Hezbollah claiming five attacks since Monday morning – among them a squadron of drones launched at an Israeli brigade's headquarters near the northern Israeli city of Acre, also known as Akka. The group also said it launched a surface-to-air missile towards an Israeli plane, forcing its retreat from Lebanese airspace.

The Israeli army said three of four drones that infiltrated Israel’s Galilee area were intercepted, while the fourth hit a tall building in the city of Nahariya, near Acre. Nahariya has not been formally evacuated by Israel. Israel’s fire service published images of the blackened, pockmarked facade of the high-rise building and said firefighters had entered the tower block to check for wounded people.

Overnight, Israeli air raids injured four people in the southern Lebanese town of Hanine, Lebanon's Ministry of Health said. The southern towns of Kafr Kela, Taybeh, Zibqin and Yater also came under Israeli fire throughout the day.

More than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon by the fighting.

Hamas is “old news”, while Tehran and its proxy groups “are the real issue”, said Mr Gantz, who stepped down from Israel's war cabinet in June.

“In Gaza, we have crossed a decisive point of the campaign. We can conduct anything we want in Gaza. We should seek to have a deal to get out our hostages but if we cannot in the coming time, a few days or few weeks, or whatever it is, we should go up north. The time of the north has come, and actually, I think we are late on this.”

An injured father comforts his daughter. AFP

The school playground, in a screengrab from video. AP

A woman identifies a family member among the dead. AFP

People at a Gaza city hospital carry the body of a family member killed in a strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians. AFP

The destroyed school. Reuters

A child at Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al Balah on August 10, in front of a man cradling the body one a family member, killed in an Israeli strike on their home in Nuseirat, Gaza. AFP

An injured girl at Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital. AFP

“We must ensure that residents can return to their homes,” Mr Gantz was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as saying. “We can achieve this goal, even if it means damaging Lebanon itself. Unfortunately, I don’t see another way.”

The war in Gaza began on October 7, when Hamas killed about 1,200 people and abducted about 240 during attacks on southern Israeli communities. Gaza's Health Ministry says almost 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since.

In Lebanon, Israeli air strikes have killed about 614 people since the beginning of cross-border fighting with Hezbollah on October 8, according to an AFP tally. Most of those killed have been Hezbollah fighters but the death toll includes at least 138 civilians.

On the Israeli side of the border at least 24 Israeli soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, including in the occupied Golan Heights, where a suspected Hezbollah strike killed 12 Druze children in the town of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for that attack.

An Israeli strike hits southern Lebanon, as seen from Zibqin, Lebanon. Reuters

Smoke and dust from an Israeli attack on Zibqin in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah says that on August 25 it launched more than 320 rockets at Israeli military positions. AFP

Israeli bombardment of the southern Lebanese town of Khiam. Reuters

A Hezbollah drone over northern Israel. AFP

From northern Israel, an Israeli warplane fires flares as a countermeasure against an hostile aircraft launched from Lebanon. AFP

A Hezbollah drone is intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over northern Israel. AFP

A Hezbollah drone is intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over northern Israel. AFP

A Hezbollah drone is intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over northern Israel. EPA

Smoke and fire on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel. Reuters

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israeli air defences in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel on August 23. AFP

Fighting continued overnight and into Monday, with the Israeli army announcing strikes across the south and Hezbollah claiming to have struck a military base in Maayan Baruch. Mr Vaturi, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, said the Israeli Prime Minister had briefed military officials on Sunday and told them to “end this saga”.

“This is something that will develop in the coming days,” Mr Vaturi was quoted by Israel's Kan public broadcaster as saying. He added that Israel would launch pre-emptive strikes on Lebanon before a ground invasion “within four to five days”.

Last week, Mr Gantz accused Mr Netanyahu of lying about the return of displaced citizens to their homes in northern areas being one of the aims of the war.

“Netanyahu flatly lied today when he said that the return of the residents of the north is one of the goals of the war,” Mr Gantz's National Unity Party said. It added that Mr Netanyahu had initially “repeatedly refused” to include the return of the displaced as an objective.

“Even worse, a year into the war, he refuses to act to make it happen.”

Mr Netanyahu has said the war in Gaza will not end until Hamas is destroyed and he pushed back against widespread demands to seal a ceasefire agreement over the weekend. On Saturday, which marked 11 months since the start of the war, more than 750,000 protesters gathered, including 500,000 in Tel Aviv, for what the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called the largest demonstration in Israel's history.

Former hostage Andrey Kozlov, who was freed from Gaza in June, said the government must agree to a ceasefire “even if it is difficult”.

A demonstrator in Tel Aviv calls for action to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. AFP

Netanyahu's safety net

Mr Netanyahu has been widely criticised in the political and public spheres for his insistence on continuing the war in Gaza in what many say is a tactic to delay his own political demise. He has cited a need to remain in Gaza's Salah Al Din corridor, also known as the Philadelphi corridor, a strip of land along the border with Egypt, for security reasons. This stance goes against a crucial Hamas demand for a ceasefire, while hostages' relatives have said the move is aimed at keeping his unpopular cabinet in government.

Speaking with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Washington summit, Mr Gantz said Mr Netanyahu would receive support from across the political spectrum if he accepted a deal with Hamas.

Mr Gantz told Mr Blinken a ceasefire deal “has support both in the Knesset and in the Israeli public” and that Mr Netanyahu will also have a “political safety net to carry it through”.

However, the former defence minister also called for international support to “increase civil and military pressure in Gaza”.

“This is what brought about the first hostage deal, and this is also what will hasten the decision of Hamas,” he said.