Lebanese prime minister accuses Israel of pursuing scorched-earth policy

Lebanon’s prime minister has sharply accused Israel of waging a “scorched-earth policy” in the country’s south, pressing for an end to the fighting as Israeli warplanes launched new strikes and the military ordered evacuations across more than a dozen areas.

His warning came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops had pushed further into Lebanon. Responding in a televised address, Nawaf Salam described the intensifying campaign as a “dangerous” escalation and appealed for “a swift and real ceasefire”.

Mr Salam said Israel was “pursuing a scorched-earth policy and collective punishment” by “destroying towns and villages and forcing their inhabitants into exile”.

Such actions, he said, would bring “neither security nor stability” to Israel.

Nawaf Salam said the strikes would deliver neither security nor stability to Israel (File Picture)

Mr Salam said the outcome of the negotiations was “not guaranteed”, but argued they remained “the least costly path for our country and our people”.

A truce aimed at stopping the fighting between Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah formally took effect on 17 April, but it has never held on the ground.

Israel and Hezbollah have each accused the other of breaking the ceasefire, using those alleged violations to justify continued attacks.

A US statement released after Friday’s Israel-Lebanon talks did not mention the truce, saying only that the “productive military-to-military discussions” would help shape a political meeting scheduled for next week.

Hezbollah has fiercely rejected the direct talks.

Fresh attacks

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said several Israeli attacks hit the south yesterday, while the Lebanese military said two of its soldiers “were seriously wounded… by a hostile Israeli drone” near the southern city of Nabatieh.

The Israeli military also issued new evacuation warnings for villages near Nabatieh as well as other areas in eastern Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it had launched multiple attacks on targets in northern Israel and had also engaged Israeli soldiers in clashes in southern Lebanon.

In a statement, the group said it was fighting Israeli forces around the outskirts of the towns of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, Yohmor al-Shaqif and Dibbine, and said the troops “had not yet succeeded in taking control of the towns”.

The Beaufort castle in south Lebanon was built in the 1100s

The Israeli military told AFP that more than 25 projectiles were fired from Lebanon toward Israel, as air raid sirens sounded in the northern cities of Karmiel and Safed for the first time since the ceasefire, according to the army’s Home Front Command.

Public broadcaster Kan aired footage shared on social media that appeared to show rockets falling into the sea off Nahariya, near the border, sending beachgoers scrambling for cover.

Mr Netanyahu said on Friday that Israeli forces had advanced beyond the Litani River, which runs about 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Lebanon-Israel frontier, and were “hitting Hezbollah head on”.

The Lebanese health ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,371 people since 2 March, when Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in support of its backer Iran.

Hezbollah said it struck Israel in retaliation for the death of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes when the war began on 28 February.

Iran has said any deal to end the broader Middle East war must also include Lebanon.

Lebanon’s culture minister told AFP that Israeli strikes in the south were placing heritage sites in “serious danger”, adding that Beaufort castle had been directly hit.