BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said negotiations with Israel under fire would amount to “surrender”, as the Iran-backed group launched attacks and Israel said it was expanding a “buffer zone” inside Lebanon.

Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for around two decades until 2000, has kept up strikes on its northern neighbour and sent ground troops to take control of a strip up to the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military had already “created a genuine security zone” and was now expanding it, pushing deeper into Lebanon.

“We are simply creating a larger buffer zone” that could prevent a ground invasion of Israel and missile attacks, Netan­yahu said in a video shared by his office.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, issued dozens of statements claiming attacks on Israeli forces, and said it also launched missiles early on Thursday at military sites in central Israel, where air raid sirens sounded.

Israeli media said six Hezbollah rockets headed for central areas were all intercepted.

Hezbollah said its fighters had launched more than 80 attacks on Wednesday, the largest daily number in the current war, and attacked Israeli forces in nine border towns.

Israel’s military said that one of its soldiers was severely wounded by rocket fire in southern Lebanon and another by mortar shell, having earlier reported an officer being lightly injured in combat.

Rockets fired towards the Haifa area in northern Israel resulted in no injuries.

In an attempt to put an end to the fighting, Lebanon’s president is calling for unprecedented direct negotiations with Israel, which has so far rebuffed his proposal.

Hezbollah chief Qassem said Wednesday his group would have none of it: “When negotiations with the Israeli enemy are proposed under fire, this is an imposition of surrender.”

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in several locations in the south on Wednesday, where the health ministry said at least eight people were killed.

Hezbollah boycotts cabinet session

Meanwhile, ministers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal boycotted Lebanon’s cabinet session on Thursday in protest after the government declared the Iranian ambassador persona non grata, a Lebanese official told AFP.

The two Shia parties have a combined four ministers, while one independent Shia minister was instead present at the meeting, the official said, as the spat over the Iranian diplomat’s expulsion escalated.

Hezbollah has political representation in both government and parliament.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry this week gave the Iranian ambassador until Sunday to leave the country, the latest unprecedented step by Lebanese authorities since a war erupted on March 2 between Israel and Hezbollah.

The foreign ministry had accused him of making statements “interfering in Lebanon’s internal politics”.

Hezbollah has called the decision a “sin” and demanded the authorities reverse the move.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2026