Tarek Chouiref<\/p>\n
21 October 2026\u2022Update: 21 October 2026<\/p>\n
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Tuesday that any rocket or drone fire targeting Israel would prompt strikes on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs.<\/p>\n
In a post on the US social media platform X, Katz said Israel could expand its occupation toward the Nabatieh and Litani areas if Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah group joined an Iranian attack.<\/p>\n
He warned that residents of any newly seized territory would be evacuated and the areas permanently incorporated into what Israel calls its security zone in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Katz also ruled out an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah was disarmed throughout the country.<\/p>\n
In an acknowledgment of the scale of destruction, Katz said Israeli forces had demolished more than 60 Lebanese villages containing 23,000 homes, claiming they had been used by Hezbollah for military purposes.<\/p>\n
He further claimed that Israel had established a 700-square-kilometer security zone inside Lebanon and displaced around 200,000 residents.<\/p>\n
His remarks came as Lebanese and Israeli military delegations held US-mediated talks at the US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Israel has carried out attacks on Lebanon since March 2, killing and injuring thousands of people and displacing over 1.5 million residents.<\/p>\n
On June 26, Lebanon and Israel signed a US-sponsored framework agreement providing for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, the deployment of the Lebanese army and the disarmament of Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
Despite the agreement, Israel has continued its attacks on southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces also continue to occupy Lebanese territory, including areas held for decades and others seized during more recent wars and military operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarek Chouiref 21 October 2026\u2022Update: 21 October 2026 Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Tuesday that any rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-652749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}