Israel presses assault on Lebanon on eve of talks

Hezbollah objects to negotiations with Tel Aviv

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM:

Israeli troops launched an attack on Monday to seize a key town in south Lebanon from Hezbollah fighters holed up there, pressing the war on the Iran-backed group on the eve of rare talks between Israeli and Lebanese government envoys.

With the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States set to meet on Tuesday in Washington, Lebanon's foreign minister said Beirut would use face-to-face negotiations to press for a ceasefire in the war, which has complicated wider diplomacy to halt the conflict in the Middle East.

But the outlook for the meeting - an unusual, face-to-face encounter between countries formally in a state of war - is uncertain. Israel has said it will not discuss a ceasefire, while Hezbollah has objected to negotiations with Israel, reflecting sharply worsening political tensions in Lebanon.

In a televised speech on Monday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the Lebanese government should cancel the Tuesday meeting, describing it as "pointless" and saying his group would continue confronting Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

On the ground in south Lebanon, the Israeli military completed its encirclement of the town of Bint Jbeil just over the border and had begun a ground assault there, an Israeli military spokesperson and Lebanese security sources said.

The Lebanese sources said Hezbollah fighters holed up inside were ready to fight to the death, citing the strategic and symbolic significance of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold, provincial capital, and gateway to surrounding villages.

An Israeli military official said full operational control of Bint Jbeil would be achieved within days, and that only a small number of militants remained in the area.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said there had been a strike on a Red Cross centre in southern Lebanon's Tyre. Lebanon's state news agency said one person was killed in the strike. It did not identify the person.

Israel's military said it carried out a strike on a "Hezbollah terrorist" in Tyre and was investigating reports the strike had caused damage to a Red Cross centre. The military did not further identify the individual it said that it had killed.

Israel's military separately said a Hezbollah rocket struck the northern Israeli city of Nahariyya. The country's fire service said it hit a three-storey residential building, while the ambulance service said a woman was lightly injured by glass shattered in the blast.

The Israeli military also said that it had intercepted more than 10 drones and rockets launched at Israel from Lebanon since the morning.

A foreign security official based in Lebanon said seizing Bint Jbeil would give Israel better control over the entirety of Lebanon's southeastern border strip, leaving just the western area of the border zone, which is largely forest and harder to clear.

Hezbollah opened fire on Israel in support of Tehran on March 2, igniting an Israeli offensive that Lebanese authorities say has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced more than 1 million.

Israel says it aims to occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean about 30 km (20 miles) from Israel's border.

Israel and the US have said the campaign against Hezbollah was not part of a fragile Iran-US ceasefire, though Pakistan's prime minister had said the truce would include Lebanon. Reuters