Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says his military is gradually shifting its attention from Gaza to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, as Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants traded new cross-border attacks on Wednesday.
Later on Wednesday, President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone about the threats facing Israel.
The two leaders talked about efforts by the United States to support Israel "against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to include ongoing defensive U.S. military deployments," a White House statement about the call said.
Biden also "stressed the urgency of bringing the cease-fire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles," the statement said.
In an overnight attack, Israel said it struck a weapons storage facility used by Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon close to the Syrian border. At least one person was killed and 30 injured, including children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
In response, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli military base in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Two houses were damaged in the village of Katzrin, the Israeli military said, and at least one person was injured when dozens of projectiles were fired from Lebanon into the area.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, posted a photo on X of what he said was a house damaged in Katzrin.
“There was no other target in the area other than a civilian neighborhood and kids on their summer vacation. ... Attacks against our civilians will not go unanswered,” he said in the post.
In another attack, state media and Palestinian officials in Lebanon said an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon on Wednesday killed the brother of a high-ranking official from Palestinian faction Fatah’s military wing.
Khalil al-Maqdah, the brother of Fatah General Mounir al-Maqdah, was killed in a strike on a vehicle, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Israeli officials have accused Mounir al-Maqdah of facilitating the smuggling of weapons into the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Mounir al-Maqdah told the Beirut-based pan-Arab TV network Al Mayadeen on Wednesday that his brother had been a brigadier general in Fatah’s armed wing and vowed the group “will respond inside of Israel.”
Earlier this month, another Israeli drone strike hit an SUV on a main road in Sidon, killing a Hamas official identified as Samer al-Haj.
Since the war in Gaza started last October, more than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon, including at least 100 civilians. In Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed.
Gallant toured northern Israel on Tuesday, telling troops that Israel has scaled back its activities in Gaza, where it has been fighting Hamas for 10½ months, and gradually shifted its focus to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
“Our strongholds are moving from the south to the north. We are gradually changing,” Gallant told troops. “We still have a number of missions in the south.”
Hezbollah quickly began striking Israel after Hamas’ shock October 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in almost daily fighting since then, increasing fears of a broader regional war, especially after Hezbollah vowed retaliation for an Israeli strike in Beirut last month that killed a top Hezbollah commander.
Hezbollah launched more than 120 projectiles toward northern Israel on Tuesday, causing damage to a home and sparking several fires. Israel said it was striking the source of the launches.
But the fighting has not stopped in Gaza.
Israel ordered the evacuation of a residential area in Deir al-Balah, near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the main hospital in central Gaza, and the Israeli military said it would soon attack militants in the area.
About 84% of Gaza’s territory has been placed under evacuation orders by the Israeli military, according to the United Nations, with many Palestinians ordered to move multiple times.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his ninth visit to the Middle East late Tuesday, saying Israel and Hamas need to soon reach an agreement for a cease-fire.
“Time is of the essence, because with every passing day, the well-being and lives of the hostages are in jeopardy,” he said before leaving Doha, Qatar.
“Time is of the essence because every single day women, children, men in Gaza are suffering without access to adequate food, medicine, and at risk of being wounded or dying in fighting that they didn’t start and they cannot stop. And time is of the essence, because with every passing day, there’s the danger of escalation in the region.”
After traveling earlier this week to Israel where he said Netanyahu accepted a bridging proposal put forward by negotiators from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt, Blinken met with officials in Cairo and Doha.
“We’re engaged every single day with Israel, and our Qatari and Egyptian partners are engaged with Hamas. And over the coming days, we are going to do everything possible to, one, get Hamas on board with the bridging proposal, and then to make sure that both parties work on and agree to necessary details of implementation that would allow everything to go forward,” he said.
On Wednesday, the State Department said Blinken spoke with Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, stressing “the urgent need to finalize the cease-fire deal that would alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people and secure the release of hostages.”
“The secretary underscored that the bridging proposal presented by the negotiators addressed the remaining gaps in a manner that allows for swift implementation of the deal,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.
Still, both Hamas and Israel signaled they did not like aspects of the U.S.-supported proposal.
In a new statement, Hamas said the latest proposal was a "reversal" of what it had previously agreed to and accused the United States of acquiescing to what it called "new conditions" from Israel.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu told relatives of hostages in Gaza that a key goal is to "preserve our strategic security assets in the face of great pressures from home and abroad."
Since Hamas started the war, Israel's retaliatory offensive against the militants in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Hamas health officials. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
