Smotrich urges Israel to annex southern Lebanon as assault intensifies
Al Jazeera
Israel’s far-right finance minister says Litani River must be ‘the new Israeli border’, as attacks on Lebanon ramp up.
Israel’s far-right minister of finance, Bezalel Smotrich, has urged his country to annex southern Lebanon, as the military has destroyed bridges and homes in an intensified assault on the area.
In an Israeli radio interview on Monday, Smotrich said that the bombardment of Lebanon “needs to end with a different reality entirely”, which includes a “change of Israel’s borders”.
“I say here definitively … in every room and in every discussion, too: The new Israeli border must be the Litani,” he said, referring to the Litani River, a critical waterway that cuts through southern Lebanon, about 30km (19 miles) from the border with Israel.
Smotrich’s comments come as Israel continues to carry out deadly attacks on Lebanon, striking residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, which the United Nations has said may amount to war crimes.
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