Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Wiener, chairman of the Beitistim movement, said in an interview with Kikar HaShabbat that Israel is still fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and is not in a ceasefire. He was reacting to the weekend deaths of soldiers in the tank disaster and a Maglan fighter, and to public confusion over whether a truce was in effect.
Wiener said the situation is tied to U.S.-Iran understandings and Iranian pressure to include Lebanon in any ceasefire. Israel, he said, would only consider that if Hezbollah stopped firing and withdrew from southern Lebanon. Since that has not happened, he said, the IDF continues its offensive.
He argued that the heaviest fighting came as Israeli forces reached Hezbollah’s most sensitive ground, moving from clashes with the Nasser and Aziz units to the area around Nabatieh and the Ali Tahr ridge, near the former Beaufort outpost. There, he said, troops are now confronting Hezbollah’s Badr unit, which he described as its main fortified formation in southern Lebanon. “We stepped on a hornet’s nest,” he said, adding that the right response is to destroy the threat. He also dismissed complaints from fighters who feel like “fish in a barrel,” saying the problem lies in commanders’ definitions, while engineering forces continue dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure as in Gaza.
Looking ahead, Wiener said Israel’s strategic goal is to protect northern communities by pushing the threat away, ideally up to the Litani line and the Nabatieh area, which he said would remove towns from direct fire and drone range. He said Israel also wants talks with the Lebanese government to isolate Hezbollah after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun recently called it an “enemy.” On a permanent Israeli presence in Lebanon, he said the post-October 7 approach is different: Israel will consider withdrawals only if Hezbollah disarms and pulls back, and “we will not return” to a situation where border towns sit under dominating high ground. He ended by echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s line that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon and Lebanon is a separate front.
