• Defence Minister Israel Katz says Israel will not withdraw from territory it occupies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

Israeli forces blow up and burn homes in southern Lebanon

Israeli forces have carried out operations to blow up and burn homes in the southern Lebanese towns of Majdal Zoun and Al-Mansouri, as well as in neighboring valleys, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports.

NNA also reported that Israeli warplanes targeted the town of Al-Mansouri in two successive waves overnight, with the sound of explosions heard in Tyre.

The Israeli military issued a forced evacuation order for the town of Al-Mansouri last week, its first displacement directive in weeks.

Hamas backs Iranian position that all wars in region should end

The Palestinian group has welcomed the recent remarks by Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who on Tuesday called for a “region-wide ceasefire, including in Lebanon and Gaza”.

Rezaei added that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the conditions were met.

Hamas’s Arab and Islamic Relations Office said in an official statement that ending the wars would serve “the best interests of the region, its peoples and their future”, while the continuation of the wars “only serves the Zionist enemy’s plans, which are based on dismantling the region, destabilising it and depleting its resources”.

Aoun, Salam meet amid continued Israeli attacks in the country’s south

President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have held talks on the developments in southern Lebanon, where Israeli attacks continue despite a US-brokered framework agreement between the countries that dictates a ceasefire.

According to a post on the Lebanese presidency’s X account, Aoun received Salam in a meeting that addressed the Israeli attacks and the destruction of homes and infrastructure in towns and villages in the region.

The two leaders also discussed the agenda of an upcoming cabinet meeting, as well as the talks held with US General Joseph Clearfield, the head of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon (MCG4L), in Beirut on Wednesday.

The MCG4L is a trilateral coordination body established under the framework deal agreed in Washington, DC, on June 26.

Israel’s Katz says army preparing for ‘extended presence’ in Lebanon

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said its army would “not withdraw from the security zone in Lebanon as long as Hezbollah is not disarmed and the threat of Hezbollah in all of Lebanon is not removed”.

“I have instructed the [Israeli military] to prepare for an extended presence in the ⁠area to protect the combat forces and the communities, until this goal is fully achieved,” Katz was quoted by Reuters as saying in a ceremony marking an illegal Israeli settlement establishment in the occupied West Bank.

Katz’s statement echoes remarks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Gaza and Hamas. On Sunday, Netanyahu said that the latest US-led Gaza roadmap was “unacceptable” and that Israel would not withdraw before Hamas is disarmed.

US President Donald Trump announced on July 30 that an agreement had been reached for Hamas to fully disarm, paving the way for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the deployment of an international stabilisation force. The proposal envisioned a phased Israeli withdrawal with the gradual disarmament of Hamas. But Prime Minister Netanyahu insists that Hamas should first be fully disarmed before the beginning of Israeli withdrawal.

Netanyahu’s Likud party is looking to bolster its security credentials among voters ⁠ahead of an election on October 27, Israel’s first since the attacks on October 7, 2023.