2 Israeli ministers call for power cuts, home demolitions in Lebanon

Two Israeli Cabinet ministers called Monday for cutting electricity to Lebanon and demolishing dozens of buildings in Beirut, as the army chief pressed for resuming attacks on the Lebanese capital.

“We must cut electricity to Lebanon, occupy the (Zahrani) River, and return to a fierce war," National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

"It is time for the (Israeli) prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to bang on (US President Donald) Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” he stated.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for his part, called for an end to the "threat of Hezbollah’s explosive drones."

"This week I approved a special budget of about 2 billion Israeli shekels (nearly $693,000)," he noted in a statement, claiming that this will allow the defense system to prepare optimally.

“In response to each explosive drone, ten buildings in Beirut must collapse, and any serious threat must be met with a decisive response," said Smotrich.

The heightened rhetoric came shortly after the public broadcaster KAN reported that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir called during a Sunday meeting of the Israeli Security Cabinet for the resumption of attacks on the Lebanese capital in retaliation for Hezbollah's drone strikes.

Israel halted its strikes on Beirut in April at the request of the US as Washington and Tehran continued Pakistan-mediated diplomatic talks to end the Iran war that started on Feb. 28.

Meanwhile, footage aired by KAN showed Hezbollah using an FPV suicide drone relying on fiber-optic guidance technology and fitted with a thermal camera for the first time.

The broadcaster said the development indicated that Hezbollah has become capable of carrying out attacks against Israeli army forces during nighttime operations as well.

Netanyahu, for his part, vowed to deliver “harsh blows” against Hezbollah, claiming that a “special team” was working on addressing the challenge posed by drones that are difficult to detect and which the group has increasingly used in attacks against Israel.

Separately, Israel’s Channel 12 said a drone struck a building in the settlement of Shomera in the western Galilee, causing a fire at the site without causing casualties.

The channel added that an Israeli sustained minor injuries when an explosives-laden drone launched by Hezbollah struck the roof of a house in the Upper Galilee settlement of Metula, near the Lebanese border.

However, KAN said that the two drones exploded at a military base in the western Galilee, without providing further details.

Israel has continued to violate a US-mediated ceasefire in Lebanon that was reached in April and was later extended through early July.

Nearly 3,200 people have been killed, over 9,600 injured, and 1.6 million displaced by Israeli bombardment in Lebanon since March 2 amid cross-border attacks with Hezbollah, according to Lebanese officials.

*Writing by Serdar Dincel and Rania Abushamala in Istanbul