JERUSALEM – Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on June 19 that “all of Lebanon must burn” after Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers there.
The Israeli losses were the first to be announced since a US-Iran deal was signed to end the Middle East war.
The agreement was also supposed to halt the fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Washington has expressed frustration at Israel’s ongoing campaign there.
“With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not up for bargaining. All of Lebanon must burn,” Ben Gvir said in a statement.
“For every tear shed by an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” he added.
“In the Near East, you don’t win with measured responses and restraint.”
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel must “go wild. Eradicate. Defeat terrorism.”
“We must let fire speak… and open the gates of hell,” he added, without explicitly mentioning Lebanon.
The US-Iran agreement has been widely perceived in Israel as detrimental to its interests, signalling a failure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to force US President Donald Trump to take account of Israeli security demands.
Netanyahu is under pressure ahead of elections due to be held by the end of October.
According to a poll published on June 19 by the newspaper Maariv, 63 per cent of Israelis are “worried” about the future of Israel following the deal.
Avigdor Lieberman, head of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu opposition party, called on June 19 for a “heavy price” to be exacted in Lebanon “from which the other side will never recover”.
If Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, “are still standing, this is a direct failure of the prime minister and the defence minister”, he wrote on X. AFP
