Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, whose country is not a party to the US-Iran deal, said Israel would not withdraw from security zones in southern Lebanon, Gaza and Syria, and that it would retaliate if Iran attacked Israel due to events in Lebanon.
Katz said the security zone in southern Lebanon would be cleared of local residents, and “all terrorist infrastructure, including houses in contact villages”, a reference to Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has been razing villages in southern Lebanon for weeks, saying it is acting against Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas of the region. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are sheltering in other parts of the country.
In Nabatieh, a devastated city in the south, Mohammed Daqdouq said he had returned on Monday morning to check on his home.
“We’ll need a lifetime to rebuild – to rebuild it again and bring Nabatieh back to how it was,” he said.