Israel: There will be no ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Israel’s Defense Minister said that there will be no ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah on November 12th, according to Ashaq Al-Awsat.
Israel Katz said on X that, during a meeting with military officials, he reiterated that Israel will continue hitting Lebanon’s Hezbollah with full force.
His comment came a day after Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said the war against Hezbollah was not yet over.
He said the main challenge facing any ceasefire deal would be enforcement, though there was “a certain progress” in talks.
Hezbollah said political contact was being made with the Israeli government by its supporters in Tehran, Washington and Moscow.
However, the paramilitary group restated it had enough weapons for a “long war” and keeping up rocket fire into Israel.
The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and there were reports that US envoy Amos Hochstein might return to the region in the coming days.
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Meanwhile, on November 12th, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told his department to prepare for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, according to Levantis.me.
At a meeting of his far-right party Religious Zionism, he said that an “important opportunity” had been provided by Trump’s victory and that “the time has come to apply sovereignty” over the West Bank.
Smotrich said he had instructed Israeli authorities overseeing West Bank settlements “to begin professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure” for extending sovereignty.
He is not just the finance minister but also has a role in the defence ministry, overseeing the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are illegal under international law.
Smotrich and others on the Israeli right have been celebrating Trump’s victory, hoping it will allow Israel to officially annex more Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967.
Israel has already annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the latter of which is recognised internationally as a part of Syria.
The US however recognised both annexations in Trump’s first term.
Smotrich said he would push the new Trump administration to recognise the annexation of the West Bank.
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Israel’s new Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has also said that the creation of Palestinian state was not a “realistic” goal, according to Levantis.me.
On November 11th, he said: “I don’t think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic,” the new minister said in response to a question about the creation of a state of Palestine in exchange for normalisation with Arab states.
Saar also claimed that a Palestinian state would be a “Hamas state.”
This followed the president of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas’ reiteration of his commitment to “sovereignty and independence on the land of the Palestinian state.”
Ashaq Al-Awsat and Levantis.me
