By Steven Scheer and Maya Gebeily
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, May 25 (Reuters) – Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume bombing Beirut in response to increased explosive drone attacks by Hezbollah on Israeli troops and northern Israel towns.
Smotrich’s comments came after an Israeli soldier was killed by a Hezbollah drone attack on Sunday. Israeli media reported that Smotrich made similar remarks at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
“The explosive drones harming our fighters are not a decree of fate,” he said in a statement. “For every explosive drone, 10 buildings should fall in Beirut.”
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu rejected Smotrich’s demands and preferred defensive measures. A Netanyahu spokesperson declined to comment.
Smotrich, leader of a small far-right party in Netanyahu’s cabinet, has frequently made comments that go beyond official Israeli policy, including that Israel must annex southern Lebanon and Gaza.
Another ultranationalist minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said Israel must not normalize the reality of explosive drones. “It is time for the Prime Minister to bang on (President Donald) Trump’s desk and tell him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” Ben Gvir said.
DRONES USED FOR ATTACKS
In recent weeks, Hezbollah has used cheap, easy-to-assemble First Person View kamikaze drones to transform the war it has been fighting since it began firing on Israel on March 2, days after the U.S.-Israeli forces began their attacks on Iran.
Controlled with fiber-optic cables, the FPV drones can evade Israel’s high-tech jamming technologies to target its troops occupying southern Lebanon during a shaky ceasefire announced on April 16, a week after the truce in the wider Iran war began.
Except for a strike targeting a Hezbollah commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier this month, there have been no strikes on the capital or its surroundings since the U.S. announced a ceasefire on April 16. However, Israel has traded fire with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah called for a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday evening to mark the 26th anniversary of Liberation Day, when Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
On Sunday evening, Hezbollah head Naim Qassem ramped up his rhetoric against the Lebanese state, saying that people had a right to take to the streets and overthrow the Lebanese government, although he stopped short of making a direct call for Hezbollah’s supporters to do so.
Smotrich said he had approved a 2 billion shekel ($693 million) budget for technological solutions to address the drone threat.
“The response to a significant threat must be significant,” Smotrich said, adding Israel needs to change the rules and the equation.
Polls show Smotrich’s party struggling to pass the threshold to get into parliament in an election later this year.
Israeli media reported that during the cabinet meeting, military chief of staff Eyal Zamir also said that buildings in Beirut should be struck in response to the drone attacks. A military spokesperson declined to confirm his comments.
($1 = 2.8881 shekels)
(Reporting by Steven Scheer in Jerusalem, Maya Gebeily in BeirutEditing by Keith Weir)
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