{"id":482614,"date":"2026-06-04T11:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482614\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:35:12","slug":"israeli-minister-says-military-operations-in-lebanon-will-continue-despite-ceasefire-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/482614\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli minister says military operations in Lebanon will continue despite ceasefire \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel<\/a>\u2019s military will continue to carry out \u200coperations in Lebanon<\/a> for the time being and will not be withdrawing from the country, defence minister Israel Katz said on Thursday, despite the announcement of a new \u200cceasefire.<\/p>\n

Israel and Lebanon on Wednesday agreed to a new ceasefire following talks mediated by the United States. Under the agreement, Lebanese militant group Hizbullah<\/a>, which did not participate \u200bin the talks, is to stop all attacks on Israel and withdraw its fighters from the area south of the Litani river in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Katz said Israel\u2019s military would remain in swathes of southern Lebanon it is occupying as part of what Israel\u2019s government describes as a buffer zone meant \u200bto protect northern Israeli communities from Hizbullah attacks.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese residents, forced from their homes in the south by Israel\u2019s military since fighting began in March, would \u2060also not be allowed to return, he said.<\/p>\n

Israel would also continue to \u201cdismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area\u201d while Israel \u200chad \u201cfreedom \u200cof \u200baction, backed by the United States, to strike in Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory\u201d, Katz said.<\/p>\n

Israel invaded Lebanon in March in pursuit of Hizbullah after the Iran<\/a>-backed group fired \u2060across the border in support of Tehran.<\/p>\n

Fighting in Lebanon, \u200bwhich has killed thousands of people and driven more than a \u200bmillion Lebanese from their homes, has become a sticking point in negotiations to end the wider Iran war<\/a>, with Tehran refusing to agree any \u200cpeace deal with Washington unless a ceasefire also covers \u200bLebanon.<\/p>\n

Under the new agreement announced on Wednesday, the Lebanese military is meant to take exclusive control over territory.<\/p>\n

Hizbullah has yet \u2060to comment on the ceasefire. Before it was announced, the \u2060group said it had conducted \u200btwo drone and rocket attacks on Israeli troops inside Lebanon that it said took place just after midnight local time on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Thursday called the ceasefire a \u201cserious mistake\u201d and said prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu should bring it to the cabinet for a vote.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir said Hizbullah would not withdraw its fighters from the area south of the Litani river and the Lebanese Armed Forces were incapable of forcing Hizbullah to comply.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lebanese state is a partner of Hizbullah,\u201d he said. \u201cIn practice, Hizbullah will only grow stronger, and instead of defeating it, Israel is \u200caccepting its very existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

An April \u2060ceasefire that was later extended failed to end the violence, with Israel and Hizbullah continuing to carry out attacks.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israeli strikes kill nine people in Gaza, medics sayOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On Monday, US president Donald Trump said Israel would not carry out attacks on Beirut after Netanyahu had said he \u200chad ordered strikes on the Lebanese capital\u2019s southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold.<\/p>\n

That announcement prompted criticism from Netanyahu\u2019s political opponents, and some allies, that the prime minister had ceded \u200bsovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are moments when one must know how to say \u2018no\u2019 even to the president of \u200bthe United States, and if we fail to do so, we will meet Hezbollah next time when it is far stronger and much more dangerous,\u201d Ben-Gvir said on Thursday. – Reuters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s military will continue to carry out \u200coperations in Lebanon for the time being and will not be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,123265,11829,3410,150432,14396,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-482614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-hizbullah","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}