JERUSALEM 

Israel threatened on Thursday to attack Lebanon if the Hezbollah group doesn't withdraw from the border area in southern Lebanon. 

Foreign Minister Israel Katz, during a meeting with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani in West Jerusalem, called on the Lebanese government "to oust Hezbollah from southern Lebanon or else Lebanon will face a devastating blow it won't recover from."

Tension has flared along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.

The border tensions erupted amid an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which killed nearly 25,700 people following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

According to a statement by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Katz and Tajani agreed on renewing Italian airline activity in Israel, as well as increasing cooperation in the fields of energy and tourism.

The Italian minister, for his part, said on X that he agreed with Katz “to strengthen joint humanitarian initiatives" to Palestinians in Gaza, and voiced his country's readiness to "treat 100 (injured) children from Gaza in Italy."

In another tweet on X documenting his meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, he said that his country backs the two-state solution "as the only way to peace in the Middle East."

Israel launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 25,700 Palestinians and injuring 63,740. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar