JERUSALEM, July 29: Israeli forces pulled out of the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil on Saturday, an Israeli military source said, but Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to strike cities in the centre of Israel, declaring that the Jewish state had failed to win any military victory after days of bloody clashes with his militant group.
Israeli troops had raided the Hezbollah stronghold, 4 km from the Israel-Lebanon border, earlier in the week as part of a major offensive against the guerilla group, which has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel in recent weeks.
“There are no soldiers in Bint Jbeil, but it’s possible they will be back for pinpointed operations,” the Israeli military source said.
Israeli Military Northern Command Chief Udi Adam said the army would continue to operate in southern Lebanon, saying: “We will continue to fight in the area of Bint Jbeil. We hold commanding positions in the areas.”
Mr Adam told reporters that troops killed 70 to 80 Hezbollah guerillas in the territory over the past few days. Hezbollah says only 31 of its fighters have died since the start of the 18-day-old conflict.
Hezbollah fired more than 90 rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel on Saturday, lightly wounding about a dozen people, the army and medics said.
They have fired more than 1,500 rockets into Israel since the violence began after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The Hezbollah leader also hailed his guerillas’ “legendary resistance” in the deadly clashes on the ground as sparking increasing calls worldwide for a political settlement to the conflict.
“Afula is only the beginning,” he said, referring to Friday’s attacks on the northern Israeli city, the deepest city yet hit by Hezbollah inside Israeli territory.
“Many cities in the centre will be the target of the ‘beyond Haifa’ phase, if the aggression continues against our (civilian) people,” he said in a televised address broadcast on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
Mr Nasrallah had previously vowed to fire rockets “beyond Haifa,” Israel’s third city, if the Jewish state continued the offensive.—Agencies
