Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel will “exact a very heavy price” from Hezbollah after the deaths of Lt. Col. Dor Gdalia Ben-Shimon and three other fighters. He said he shared the grief of the families and described Hezbollah’s attack as a “blatant violation of the ceasefire,” adding that he had ordered the IDF to respond with full force. “Israel will not tolerate attacks on our soldiers or our territory,” he said.
Netanyahu said the military has already struck more than 80 terror targets and killed dozens of militants since the incident, and that attacks were expanded in the morning to Hezbollah headquarters in the Bekaa Valley. After a security assessment with the defense minister and the chief of staff, he said the operational order was clear, to impose a very heavy cost on the organization for any harm to IDF soldiers. He added that Israel will keep holding the security zone in southern Lebanon as long as necessary to protect northern communities.
Earlier, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X that the IDF will continue holding the buffer zone in Lebanon, from the coast to the Beaufort area, with the goals of protecting northern Israeli communities, thwarting targeted threats, and destroying terror infrastructure above and below ground. The IDF had already published a map of the security area in southern Lebanon, saying forces are deployed in a zone extending up to about 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory.
The army also urged the Lebanese Army and residents not to approach the security zone, saying its forces are established there and continue operating to remove threats and improve protection for northern residents. In parallel, CNN reported that Iran has set a new condition for continuing talks with the United States, a guarantee that the war in Lebanon will end. According to a diplomatic source, mediators are trying to solve the issue, but the next round of talks planned in Switzerland has been postponed for now.
