Report: Israeli threats against Lebanon aimed at intimidation

The latest flurry of Israeli threats regarding an imminent military operation in Lebanon are only aimed at “intimidation,” diplomatic sources said.

“They are also aimed at blocking the latest Iranian-American rapprochement, whose first signs have appeared in the agreement reached in Iraq, which would not have happened without an Iranian green light,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday.

Iraq and the United States have agreed on a phased pullout of the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition but have yet to sign a final agreement, the Iraqi defense minister said Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that he had instructed the army and security forces to prepare to change the situation on Lebanon’s border, where Israel has been engaged in near-daily clashes with Hezbollah since October 8 last year.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents on both sides of the border and Israel has repeatedly vowed to act to return its citizens through war or diplomatic action.

The cross-border violence has killed some 614 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 138 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Israel and Hezbollah had on August 25 exchanged heavy fire that briefly raised fears of an all-out war. On that day, Israel said around 100 warplanes launched airstrikes targeting hundreds of rocket launchers across southern Lebanon to thwart an imminent Hezbollah attack. Hezbollah for its part said it launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israeli military and security bases, including at a key intelligence base in Tel Aviv’s suburbs.

Hezbollah called the attack a response to the killing of one of its top commanders, Fouad Shukur, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs in July.