September 26 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Several Israeli ministers on Thursday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to accept the request for a 21-day truce with Lebanon, made on Wednesday by the United States and France, in the face of renewed fighting with the Shiite militia party Hezbollah and fears of a full-scale war in the region.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-nationalist, said on his X social media account that “the (military) campaign in the north must end in one scenario: crushing Hezbollah and denying its ability to cause harm to residents in the north.”
“The enemy must not be given time to recover from the heavy blows received and reorganize to continue the war after 21 days,” he said, adding that “the surrender of Hezbollah or war is the only way to return residents and security to the north and the country.”
Along these lines, the Minister for Settlements and National Projects, Orit Strock –from Smotrich’s party–, has stressed that “there is no moral mandate for a ceasefire, neither for 21 days nor for 21 hours.” “Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a barrel of explosives,” she argued on her X account.
Strock has asked Netanyahu “not to repeat the mistakes of the past” and “not to stop until the situation is resolved (by military means),” a line also expressed by the Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, who has said that the efforts to achieve a ceasefire represent “a dangerous hypocrisy.”
“We will not give up our security in exchange for a false peace,” said the minister, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who in the last few hours called an “urgent meeting” to discuss the proposal, according to the Israeli newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, for his part, has argued that the government should accept the proposal, but “only for seven days” in order to “not allow Hezbollah to reestablish its command and control systems.”
“We will not accept any proposal that does not include the removal of Hezbollah from our northern border,” he said on his X account, where he stressed that “any proposal that is presented must allow the residents of the north to immediately return safely to their homes.”
He also said that any violation of the ceasefire, even the slightest, would lead to Israel attacking again with all its force and in all areas of Lebanon, although Netanyahu has not yet officially commented on the proposal unveiled by the United States and France.
The reactions come after Washington and Paris on Wednesday called for a “temporary” 21-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah in view of “a diplomatic agreement” to “avoid further escalation on both sides of the border,” a proposal that has received the support of the European Union and several countries, including several Arab states.
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