Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday (Oct 14) vowed to hit Hezbollah without mercy, a day after the Iran-backed Lebanese group’s deadliest strike on Israel since the start of the war in late September.
Hezbollah’s drone attack on an Israeli base killed four soldiers on Sunday, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were injured.
“We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the Lebanon border, Israel intensified its strikes against targets in Lebanon late last month before sending ground troops across the frontier.
Israel wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah says its strikes are in support of Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on Oct 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The International Organization for Migration said last week it had verified 690,000 people displaced by the war in Lebanon.
Prime Minister Simon Harris of Ireland, which has troops in the UNIFIL mission, on Monday, told Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a phone call that UNIFIL has “a clear mandate from the Security Council and that it must be allowed to carry out its functions unimpeded,” Harris’s office said.
The Hamas attack on Israel last year which triggered war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.