(Bloomberg) -- Israeli ground forces are expanding their six—week-old sweep of villages in southern Lebanon, triggering new clashes with Hezbollah militants while US-led cease-fire plans remain in limbo.
An Israeli official who requested anonymity said the army had started moving into a second line of Lebanese communities beyond an initial operational zone approximately 3 km (1.9 miles) in depth. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the forces were “operating in new places” but at “the same sort of range or distance.”
The advance came alongside airstrikes against more than 30 Hezbollah sites in the Lebanese capital of Beirut over the past two days, the IDF said, attracting some criticism from the US.
“We do not want to see these kinds of consistent operations in Beirut, especially as it relates to densely populated areas,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said in a regular briefing on Thursday. “This is something we’re going to continue to stress with our partners in Israel. “
Six Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah ambush on Wednesday and another on Thursday, the IDF said, bringing its total losses during the invasion to 42. The IDF declined to give locations for the new fatalities.
Israel sent tanks and troops into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1, aiming to weaken the Iran-backed group after a year of cross-border fire and allow tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel to return home. The ground offensive reinforced airstrikes on Beirut and elsewhere, which had killed a number of senior Hezbollah members including former leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
About 2,755 people in Lebanon have been killed in the conflict since mid-September, according to the country’s Health Ministry, while 1.2 million have been displaced. The IDF said it has killed 2,250 Hezbollah fighters during the southern Lebanon sweep — a period when the group has stopped publishing its losses.
Israel has previously signaled an openness to a truce with Hezbollah that would lead to a deal along the lines of a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the group to be distanced from the border and disarmed. But Israel’s new Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday his country’s military objectives remain the top priority.
“We shall not enter any cease-fires, take our foot off the pedal nor allow any arrangement that does not entail achieving the war’s goals,” Katz said.
Israel said Monday that cease-fire efforts had made “certain progress,” though Lebanon warned it hasn’t received concrete proposals from US mediators. Israel insists it requires the right to resume military operations against Hezbollah in the event of any departure from a truce agreement — a demand likely to be resisted by Beirut.
Hezbollah launched rockets attacks on Israel in solidarity with Hamas following the start of the war in Gaza in October last year. The group has said any cease-fire would depend on the agreement of a truce in the Palestinian territory, an increasingly distant prospect.
Yoni Chetboun, a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and reserve lieutenant-colonel, said the military is expanding ground operations in Lebanon to gain diplomatic leverage and to impair Hezbollah’s ability to attack Israeli border communities.
“We have to finish this stage to bring back our citizens to the north,” he said. “It should take a few weeks.”
--With assistance from Ethan Bronner, Dana Khraiche and Iain Marlow.
(Updates with US comment in fourth paragraph)
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