NEW YORK, November 27. /TASS/. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam expressed his growing frustration over continued Israeli strikes on his country, despite a ceasefire being in place.
"We have a freewheeling actor acting as a dominant force under [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s leadership, and its power is increasing," Salam told The New York Times (NYT) in an interview.
Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory have destabilized the situation and hindered efforts to disarm Hezbollah, Salam complained. On the day of a recent drone attack, the prime minister recounted, he received a phone call from a US-and France-led monitoring mission. "A half-hour later I get another call reporting five killed, including three children, by an Israeli drone strike <…>. I feel frustrated, but what is the point of protesting again and again?" he asked rhetorically.
He also pointed out that Israel has not fulfilled its obligation to fully withdraw its troops from Lebanon’s border areas, retaining control of five hilltop positions. Salam added that he had repeatedly raised this issue with the US military overseeing the ceasefire.
"I told him [an American officer] we are not in 1914 or 1915. To monitor what goes on around you, you don’t need to be on top of a 700-meter hill with binoculars or a Galileo telescope! Israel has satellite imagery and drones and balloons with the most sophisticated cameras on earth," the Lebanese head of government noted.
On November 23, Netanyahu’s office said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had delivered a targeted strike on an area near Beirut to eliminate who it called a key Hezbollah terrorist.
An Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, their first after more than a year of cross-border strikes, began on November 27, 2024. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, Israel has carried out over 5,000 attacks on Lebanon since the beginning of the year despite the ceasefire. As many as 309 people were killed and 598 have suffered injuries in the strikes.