Buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut, destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. (Credit: Mohammed Yassine/L'Orient Today)
Israeli officials are escalating their rhetoric again, renewing threats amid growing tensions in the Middle East ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 legislative elections.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday threatened to evacuate and bomb Beirut’s southern suburbs and expand Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon if Hezbollah joins Iran in attacking Israel.
“The Israeli army is ready to launch a ground offensive,” Katz said during a visit Wednesday morning to the Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon. He added that Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, “will also be evacuated and its terrorist infrastructure struck, while more than a million Shiites will be displaced in Lebanon.”
“Nasrallah destroyed Lebanon’s Shiite community before being eliminated, and Naim Qassem could annihilate it completely, until he too is eliminated,” Katz added, referring to former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024, and his successor, Naim Qassem.
Why it matters
Although such threats are not unusual, Katz had not made similar statements for several months, following the announcement of a cease-fire in Lebanon at the end of June. Beirut and its southern suburbs have not been targeted by Israel since April 8, 2026, when Israeli airstrikes killed more than 350 people across Lebanon within hours.
As Israel’s election campaign intensifies, candidates have increasingly traded threats. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that, if re-elected, he intends to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah within two years.
“We have done 90% of the work, but there is still more to do. In the next two years, we will definitively eliminate Hamas, we will definitively eliminate Hezbollah, and we will bring down Iran,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israeli military radio station GLZ.
Recent media reports said Netanyahu had tried to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to resume strikes against Iran ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, scheduled for early November.
Asked about the possibility of further military escalation before the elections, Netanyahu said he “sincerely hopes that won't be the case.”
“It is true that Israel's enemies want to attack us in the coming days, and there are signs of that,” he added.
In the Gulf, two more ships were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, bringing the number of reported attacks that day to four, the British maritime security agency UKMTO said Wednesday.
A 50,000-metric-ton container ship and a 19,000-metric-ton container ship were each struck by a projectile of unknown origin, UKMTO said. Both vessels reported minor damage and continued their journeys. Two other attacks reported Tuesday evening targeted a tanker and a container ship, although UKMTO did not specify whether they caused damage or casualties.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies passed before the war in the Middle East, has become a key theater of the war, which began on Feb. 28 with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Tehran has since claimed control of the strategic waterway and repeatedly targeted ships transiting it without its authorization.
Washington has responded by imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ports, while the latest diplomatic talks between the two countries have failed to produce an agreement to reopen the strait, where vessels continue to come under attack.
- A tennis tournament and three Saudi Pro League matches scheduled for this week have been postponed for “logistical reasons,” Riyadh announced amid escalating Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia. Several other league matches in the capital had already been suspended after the interception of a missile fired from Yemen.
- U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said Tuesday that Washington was continuing contacts with Lebanon and Israel to advance negotiations between the two countries, which have been stalled since their last meetings in Rome in August. He reiterated that Hezbollah’s disarmament was necessary to pave the way for the reconstruction of southern Lebanon and the return of displaced residents. Gulf and European countries could mobilize “billions of dollars” for reconstruction, he added.
- Lebanese President Joseph Aoun spoke by phone Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The two agreed on “the need to support diplomatic solutions to end conflicts in the region,” the Lebanese presidency said in a statement.
- Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar has filed a defamation lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of making false statements about their respective responsibilities regarding Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
