Hezbollah: Israel is threatened with a second entrance on the border with Lebanon | EUROtoday

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Dhe instructor Gila Rachavski stands within the auditorium of her college and factors to an enormous gap within the wall. Pieces of rubble lie on the seats the place dad and mom would in any other case applaud their kids's theater performances. “Fortunately, our kibbutz had already been evacuated when the Hezbollah rocket hit,” says Rachavski.

Their kibbutz Sasa in northern Israel is barely a few kilometer from the Lebanese border. Of the 450 residents, solely 50 remained. The instructor and her husband Uri are two of them. He is an electrician and desires to make sure that the electrical energy provide in Sasa is maintained.

But life within the deserted group takes a toll on him. “We feel lost. We don't know when life will return here. Our children and our grandchildren can no longer visit us. It's terrible.”

Here in the north of the country, the Israeli armed forces have been engaged in a small war with the terrorist militia Hezbollah. But there is great fear that the situation will escalate and a second front will emerge for Israel after Gaza. “I'm afraid that Hezbollah will come here and kill us like Hamas did in the south,” says Uri Rachavski. Around 80,000 Israelis have already been evacuated from the border space with Lebanon.

CDU leader Merz visits kibbutz in northern Israel

To get an idea of ​​the tense security situation, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz visits the kibbutz, which is idyllically located between vineyards. Merz wears a bulletproof vest and listens carefully to the residents.

He says he hopes that they will be able to return to their hometown at some point. “Before that is possible again, there must be a security concept in the north of Israel and that must include the south of Lebanon,” said the German opposition leader afterwards in an interview with WELT TV.

France has made a concrete proposal to Lebanon to end hostilities. Accordingly, fighters from various militias, including the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, should withdraw ten kilometers from the border with Israel.

The three-stage plan drawn up by French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné envisages a ten-day de-escalation process that will conclude with negotiations on the disputed border between Israel and Lebanon. All militias should stop their attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. In return, Israel should end its air strikes on targets in Lebanon.

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The French proposal also calls for up to 15,000 soldiers from the regular Lebanese army to be stationed in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel. An Israeli official told Reuters that they had received the French proposal and that the government was looking into it.

Senior Hezbollah member Hassan Fadlallah said the militia would not discuss “matters related to the situation in southern Lebanon before halting attacks on Gaza.” The rocket assaults on Israel from Lebanon are more likely to proceed in the intervening time.

War against Hezbollah would overwhelm Iron Dome

Israeli army spokesman Arye Shalicar, who grew up in Germany, leads Friedrich Merz to a pickup truck. Remains of a rocket that destroyed a tractor in a field lie on the loading area. No one was killed, but the example shows that Hezbollah repeatedly attacks civilian targets.

According to estimates, the Lebanese terrorist organization is said to have up to 130,000 rockets. These have a significantly greater range and can be controlled much more precisely than those of Hamas. In the event of a full-scale war against Lebanon, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system would be overwhelmed and tens of thousands of lives would be at risk.

In an interview with WELT TV, Friedrich Merz calls for increased action against terrorist financing via accounts in Germany. “It cannot be the case that accounts are maintained in Germany that finance Hezbollah and Hamas.” After the events of October 7th, we need to think about “how we can also prevent terrorist financing from Germany.”

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“Axis of Resistance”

The CDU chief additionally criticized “the fact that German tax revenues are used to finance UN institutions that support Hezbollah and Hamas.” There have been “very clear findings that the UNWRA was obviously deeply involved in supporting Hamas in the Gaza Strip .”

Merz had simply left the border space in his armored car when a rocket hit the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona. A 15-year-old boy and a 47-year-old lady are significantly injured.