Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu warns Hezbollah against new war front
Hezbollah will make «the mistake of its life» if it starts a war with Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, as tensions continue to surge on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Netanyahu visited troops on the Lebanese border in northern Israel where mounting artillery exchanges have heightened fears of a new war front opening as Israel battles Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli defence ministry on Sunday ordered 14 additional communities to join dozens that have already been evacuated from the border area.
In the event of scaled up hostilities, Netanyahu said Hezbollah «will make the mistake of its life. We will strike it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the significance for it and the state of Lebanon will be devastating.»
Hezbollah is allied with Hamas, which touched off the latest violence with an October 7 rampage that killed at least 1,400 people in Israel, according to authorities.
Israel has retaliated with relentless strikes on Hamas in the Gaza Strip that have killed more than 4,650 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry.
It has in parallel exchanged fire with Hezbollah across its northern border.
Since October 7, the exchanges have killed at least 33 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally — mostly combatants but at least four civilians, including a Reuters news agency journalist.
Another four people have been killed in Israel — three soldiers and one civilian.
